


Distance From Here to Wherever You Are

by Abyssinia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-18
Updated: 2007-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssinia/pseuds/Abyssinia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"You always have a bad feeling about something," Sheppard scoffed at him.</i></p><p>"Not like this," Rodney informed him.  "Usually I have a bad feeling because I'm, I don't know, trapped in a broken puddle jumper sinking to the bottom of the ocean or in a cocoon on a Wraith hive ship.  This is just a sense of impending doom."</p><p>"I wouldn't think a man of science like yourself would believe in premonitions," Sheppard said, raising an eyebrow in Rodney's direction.</p><p>Rodney dignified that comment with a disgusted snort.  "I'm not talking about hocus pocus like voodoo or astrology here.  I'm talking about noticing something is just a little out of whack but not knowing what.  It isn't until after it goes wrong that you know you've been seeing it all along.  But I'm sure whatever it is you'll be able to save everyone by blowing it up."<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Irmelin, Hiyacynth, Likethesun2 and Damson for the idea-bouncing, betaing, and encouragement.

Rodney was stretched out under his bed, just getting his fingertips on the puddle jumper schematic he wanted to take a better look at when Sheppard shouted from the doorway. "You in here, McKay? If you weren't flying that jumper back to Earth I think they would have left without you."

"Ouch," Rodney muttered, rubbing his head where it had cracked against the underside of his bed as he extricated himself from its claustrophobic caverns. He shoved the schematic in the backpack with his laptop and looked up to see Sheppard navigating around a pile of dirty socks and a larger pile of astrophysics textbooks, wrinkling his nose.

"You know, we don't exactly have a maid service to clean up after you when you're gone," he said, picking up a lost t-shirt and tossing it onto a chair.

"Yes, yes." Rodney waved a dismissive hand at the colonel as he dug for a few more shirts to add to the pile spilling out of his open suitcase. "I had too much to take care of before I left. Had to make sure there'd still be a city for me to come back to."

"C'mon, have a little faith," Sheppard told him. "We've gotten pretty used to this place. I think we can survive a few weeks without your genius. Besides, you've been gone that long before."

"True," Rodney commented as he shut the lid to the suitcase and frowned at the distance spanning the halves of the open zipper. "But I rarely get to prepare before I go. It's not like the Genii leave little 'We're planning to kidnap you next week so make sure to get your labwork in order' notes." He resorted to sitting on top of the suitcase as he wrestled with the zipper. "And it's a good thing I took the time too. If Dr. Simpson had continued her plans to modify the power grid with that wretchedly backwards calculation she would have blown every light bulb in this city. And the things Dr. Fry wanted to do to the firing mechanism on the drones would have destroyed half of Atlantis. For that matter if you don't stop your teams" -- he paused in his tirade to focus on shoving the zipper the last few inches before he flopped onto the bed next to his sealed, if overstuffed suitcase -- "looking for some Ancient football stadium or, or, porn viewing room, well, I won't be here to rescue you from whatever Ancient science-fair project they set free."

"I didn't say it wouldn't be hard to survive without you. I sure don't know what I'll do with all the quiet." Sheppard smirked at Rodney as he picked up his bulging suitcase. "Now c'mon, you're going home for Christmas whether you're ready or not." Rodney watched Sheppard head out of the doorway with his suitcase and hurried after, slinging the backpack with his laptop over his shoulder.

Logically Rodney knew Sheppard was right. He'd been gone this long before, and the city had always still been there when he returned. He figured he'd saved the city about as many times as it had survived over a week without him. Still he couldn't quite shake the dead weight that had settled in the pit of his stomach.

He looked up to find Sheppard had gotten far ahead in the corridor, and jogged a bit to catch up. "You know, we only just got the new power grid worked out," he commented, ignoring the way Sheppard shook his head. "There's bound to be all sorts of kinks to work out. And Zelenka might need help with that new device he discovered. Maybe I should stay. I can always go home some other time."

"No. You can't." Sheppard quickened his steps down the hall. "Well, you can go home another time, but you're still going now. You're going to spend Christmas with Jeannie, and then you can come back and yell at us for everything we do wrong while you're gone."

"Oh, and you're quite the example family man to be giving me lectures. I don't see you going home for Christmas. Or even including anything in the mail sacks." This struck a nerve and Rodney nearly flinched as Sheppard stiffened. "I'm sorry. I just have a bad feeling -- like something's going to happen while I'm gone."

"You always have a bad feeling about something," Sheppard scoffed at him.

"Not like this," Rodney informed him. "Usually I have a bad feeling because I'm, I don't know, trapped in a broken puddle jumper sinking to the bottom of the ocean or in a cocoon on a Wraith hive ship. This is just a sense of impending doom."

"I wouldn't think a man of science like yourself would believe in premonitions," Sheppard said, raising an eyebrow in Rodney's direction.

Rodney dignified that comment with a disgusted snort. "I'm not talking about hocus pocus like voodoo or astrology here. I'm talking about noticing something is just a little out of whack but not knowing what. It isn't until after it goes wrong that you know you've been seeing it all along. But I'm sure whatever it is you'll be able to save everyone by blowing it up."

"Rodney," Elizabeth's shout echoed from the jumper bay doors. "You know, it's not nice for the guy flying the jumper back to Earth to be late."

"Why? It's not like they could leave without me," Rodney told her, ignoring the look Elizabeth exchanged with Sheppard and striding into the jumper bay. "All right, everyone aboard. We're heading back to Earth." A sea of faces looked out the door at him in disgust and one of the marines motioned him to get on with it.

Rodney turned to Elizabeth. "Permission to return to Earth for leave?"

Elizabeth smiled and nodded. "Be safe, Rodney," she said. "Say hi to Jeannie for us, and don't forget to bring back pictures of the new baby or we'll turn you right back around to get them." Elizabeth patted Rodney on the shoulder before turning to exit the bay.

Rodney turned and found himself in a brief embrace. Sheppard removed his arm from Rodney's shoulders, tugging slightly at Rodney's backpack. "Have a wonderful Christmas and try to remember you're on leave so you need to relax. Don't worry about us. Also, I'm keeping this here." Rodney briefly glimpsed the jumper schematic in Sheppard's hands before he tucked it behind his back. "I'm sending Jeannie a note -- she'll let me know if you work instead of playing with Madison."

Rodney displayed his most put-upon face as he entered the jumper, but ultimately he wasn't that angry. He had plenty of other projects to work on. The jumper controls responded a little faster than the last time he'd flown -- either John's training or Carson's refinement of the gene therapy had improved things -- and he was soon in the gateroom, over the McKay-Carter bridge and docking at SGC. Within hours he was in Canada and knocking on Jeannie's front door.

The day before Christmas Eve Rodney found himself wandering through Book City trying to remember how to buy presents. He'd acquired an Athosian doll for Madison and a baby blanket for Jeannie, along with a book Feynman wrote mostly about physics but a little about parenting. Caleb proved much harder to shop for, since Rodney was pretty sure any English major good enough to marry his sister would already own the complete works of Shakespeare.

The crowded stores of Earth felt claustrophobic after his years on Atlantis. and he had forgotten how nightmarish shopping before Christmas was, but he had left this present-hunting to the last minute. After browsing the literature section, he'd picked out something random for Caleb supposedly written by someone who'd won a Nobel Prize in something that wasn't physics. Rodney wandered toward the science fiction section, stopping to scoff at the newest in pop-culture science books. He was in the middle of debating whether Zelenka preferred Bradbury or Heinlein when his cell phone rang.

It was Caleb, sounding out of breath and excited. "Hey Rodney! Jeannie's water broke -- looks like we're having a Christmas baby. We're heading to the hospital and we've left Maddy at the neighbors. Do you think you could come home soon and watch her? We'll call you when you can take her to the hospital."

They'd arranged this ahead of time but Rodney was secretly hoping the baby would be late enough he wouldn't have to actually do this. Figthing off a Wraith siege seemed easier than watching over a child, but Jeannie had promised not to blame him if the house burned down. "Sure. I'll head home right now."

He settled on one book by each author for Zelenka -- since he hadn't done anything stupid lately and you couldn't get Earth novels in the Pegasus Galaxy -- and joined the line of people waiting for an open cash register. The woman with the screaming child had finally finished juggling everything she carried and managed to pay when Rodney's phone went off again, drawing displeased looks from those around him. A feeling of dread crept up his spine as the theme to _2001: A Space Odyssey_ \-- the ringtone he'd assigned to Stargate Command -- echoed through the store. When he flipped open the phone to see "Samantha Carter" on the caller ID, he turned and pushed his way back through the line behind him, stepping on a few toes and earning a number of angry comments. He left the books on a random table and walked out the door while answering, "Colonel Carter! What a surprise. Is it too much to hope you're just wishing me a merry Christmas?"

"I wish, McKay." Carter sounded tired. "I can tell you that you'll have extra time to enjoy your family this Christmas."

"I never said I wanted extra time. What's happening?" Rodney dropped the car keys into a slushy pile of snow and cursed as he tried to fish them out, only to drop them again at Carter's next words.

"There's been a situation at Atlantis. Dr. Weir called in briefly to request immediate evacuation with the _Daedalus_."

"What happened? Why the _Daedalus_? When is it leaving? Why hasn't Hermiod already beamed me up? Why can't they just gate back to Earth?" The knees of Rodney's pants were soaked through with snow but he barely noticed.

Carter sighed heavily, and Rodney couldn't help wondering if she'd drawn the short straw in the 'who calls Dr. McKay?' game. "We don't know what happened. We can't reconnect to their gate so we can't get more information and we assume that is why they can't gate back. The _Daedalus_ is already on its way."

"What!" Several people in the parking lot turned at Rodney's shout but he was beyond caring about that. "How dare Caldwell leave without taking me! I know more about Atlantis than anyone." Rodney managed to snag his keys and stood, slipping them into his pocket.

Carter's voice in his ear struggled to remain calm and pleasant, but he could tell she was tired and worried. "We didn't leave you behind. The _Daedalus_ was already near the edge of the galaxy because Hermiod was testing some new engine modifications. Coming back to get you would have meant losing over four days. Plus, Dr. Weir asked for evacuation, not help. I doubt there's anything you could do there."

Rodney thought about this a minute and snapped his fingers. "Then I'll come to SGC, see what I can do from there. I'll go to the airport and catch the next flight, no, I'll drive. It'll probably be faster--"

"McKay."

"--Let's see, I'll have to call Caleb and let him know. Madison should be fine with the neighbors. Jeannie's probably too busy giving birth -- "

"McKay!"

"--I'll need coffee for the drive. And a map and I'll have to stop back and get my passport because they're checking that at the border now --"

"RODNEY!"

"WHAT?"

"Did you say Jeannie was in labor right now?" Carter's voice had that tone of forced, patient politeness she often used on him.

"Yes, Caleb called just before you did."

"Don't come to SGC. There's nothing you can do. I promise to call you personally when we hear anything and if having you will help I'll send a plane to get you. Go be with your family. And congratulate Jeannie for me." She didn't wait for Rodney's response but hung up with a loud click.

Rodney stood in the parking lot and stared at his phone, willing Carter to call back and laugh at her joke. Above his head streetlights illuminated the new snowflakes coming from the sky and Christmas songs from three stores blended into a cacophony of holiday cheer. "Well, this is just great," he muttered to himself, missing his pocket and droping the phone into a snowbank, cursing when he realized what he'd done. He quickly dug it out again, berating himself for nearly destroying his contact with SGC, and kicked the rental car before climbing in and driving off just a little too fast.


	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth watched the jumper disappear through the 'gate. One of the best parts about being in regular contact with Earth was the opportunity for people to actually go home and see their distant loved ones. Not that she'd yet taken that opportunity. She sighed and stretched, feeling kinks in her muscles that weren't there when the mission began, and turned to find John wryly grinning at her. "What?"

"You just look like you could use a trip home on that jumper too." John turned to follow her up the control room steps. "When's the last time you took a day off, Elizabeth?"

"When did we first leave Earth for Atlantis?" she asked, reaching the top step. "I think it was about two months before then." It felt as though, even with all the wonders and adventure they brought, each of the years on Atlantis had aged her several. But, she figured, that's the price you pay for leading the expedition on the greatest adventure in human history. She wouldn't trade any of those years for anything.

The control room stood relatively quiet for the moment. There were no Wraith Hive ships being tracked on the long-range sensors, no pressing mechanical emergencies in the city to monitor, and only one team still finishing up a routine trading expedition. Elizabeth intended to enjoy every minute of this unusual peace. "Has Major Lorne checked in yet?" she asked the tech manning the DHD.

"Yes, Ma'am." She pretended not to notice him quickly close the solitaire game on his computer. "Radioed in about fifteen minutes ago. Said they'd be about another hour and they managed to get a really good trade this time."

"Good," she said and headed to her office, turning at the doorway to raise her eyebrow at John, who seemed to be following her like a lost puppy. "Did you need something, John?"

"Nah." He slouched against the doorway. "Just bored, I guess. Rodney's gone so I can't harass him and Teyla and Ronon are with the Athosians on the mainland helping with that big harvest."

"That's right," she said, sitting behind her desk. "Does Teyla think the crop will be good this year?" John flopped into a chair in front of her and picked up one of the Earth artifacts on her desk, examining it closely before tossing it between his hands like a baseball. He shrugged his shoulders vaguely. Farming was definitely not one of John Sheppard's specialties. She picked up a form on her desk and sighed. "It's nice being in contact with Earth. We can get supplies we need. People can go home. But I didn't miss having to fill out four different forms in triplicate just to get a box of PowerBars."

John grinned at her. "If they give you any trouble, just explain how vital they are to our mission. They're like personal ZPMs for our scientists."

She grimaced at the form and slipped it under another pile of papers she needed to remember to look at. "What do you say to an Atlantis Christmas break? We haven't had much time off since we got here and I know everyone's tired. We could put off-world teams and city explorations on hold for a few days, shut down any research and work that isn't essential and get a few day's rest. Maybe even have a…harvest festival with the Athosians." It was Christmas on the Earth calendar, but that didn't make it winter on Atlantis.

"I think that'd be great." He put the ball of clay back on her desk. "The oceanographers told me there'd be some great waves off the North Pier in a few days. What do you say, Doctor, wanna learn how to surf?" He grinned at her mischievously.

"I don't know." She surveyed her desk. "SGC will have my head if I don't get caught up on all these forms."

John shook his head. "Elizabeth, if you're ordering the Atlantis expedition to take a vacation, you need to give yourself one too. I'll give you two days and then I'm personally dragging you out of this office, into a wetsuit, and out onto those breakers."

"Okay, John. Now go away so I can get this finished." She waved him off.

He unfolded from the chair and paused in the doorway of her office, shaking a finger at her. "Two days and I'm picking you up and carrying you away from that desk." He turned and left before the pencil she threw could hit him.

Two nights later Elizabeth was working late at her desk. No one was off-world, and Teyla and Ronon were due to return from the mainland tomorrow with a share of the bumper crop. Plans for a party she wasn't supposed to know about were in full swing. Everything in Atlantis was quiet but she was still frantically working to finish the backlog of paperwork before John's promised abduction.

"Dr. Weir?" The nighttime gate tech was in her office door.

She put her pen down and rubbed her eyes. "Yes?"

"We've got a life sign in an unexplored section of the city," he said. She got up to follow him into the command room. Any excuse to get away from mission reports and supply requisitions. On the map of the city was a glowing dot in a hallway they'd only recently gained access to. Dr. Zelenka had said it almost looked like the doors had been welded shut. Whoever it was seemed to be wandering aimlessly down the hallway, periodically pausing here or there and then wandering some more.

"Send a team of marines to investigate," she told him. "Hopefully someone just got a little drunk and got lost on their way home."

She retrieved coffee for herself and the gate tech and returned just as Major Lorne radioed in. "Dr. Weir? It's Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, ma'am. He appears to be sleepwalking."

"Sleepwalking?" Elizabeth asked, incredulous.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can you escort him back to his quarters?" She asked.

"We can try." She heard a muffled thump over the radio. "He, um, doesn't seem to want to go." The sounds of one of the soldiers gasping a bit came over the radio.

"Okay, shadow him for now. If he tries to touch anything, stun him. I'll call Dr. Beckett."

That morning, instead of learning how to surf, Elizabeth found herself visiting John in the infirmary. By the time Dr. Beckett had gotten to the hallway, John had already turned around and headed toward his quarters, marines on his tail. Beckett hadn't seemed overly concerned once John was back in bed, simply requesting he report to the infirmary in the morning.

John gave Elizabeth a sleepy wave as she entered the room. "All this fuss just because I took a midnight stroll."

"A midnight stroll in an unexplored section of the city," Elizabeth reminded him. "You could have activated one of those, what does Rodney call them, Ancient science-fair experiments."

"Well, Colonel, everything appears," Beckett walked up, examining a printout, "relatively normal. Have you ever sleepwalked before?"

"There was one time in college, after my first frat party," he said, trying a disarming smile on them.

"Uh huh. And did you punch a marine then too?" Elizabeth couldn't resist the question.

John gave his blanket a sheepish look. "I said I was sorry! Look, can I go now?"

"I see no reason to keep you. But --" Beckett took another look at the chart in his hand and shook his head. "I'd like to run one more test. Nothing to worry about, just a few readings a wee bit different from your normal ones. Might just be getting a cold."

"I've got a few briefings in my office this morning, when the good doctor releases you," Elizabeth told John.

"I told you today I was taking you surfing! Don't think I won't drag you away from those scientists." John looked at her sternly.

"After the briefings," Elizabeth reminded him. "I'll see you when Carson lets you go."

The botany team that had recently returned from M5S-G72 was halfway through their briefing on the potentially edible plants they'd found when John finally walked into her office. Elizabeth nodded to him and silently indicated the empty chair beside her.

John sat down and whispered into her ear, "Doc let me go with a clean bill of health. I think something was still puzzling him but he ran out of excuses to keep me. And I might have been driving the nurses crazy." He grinned impishly and settled back, letting a bored look wash over his face as the talk shifted from edible fruit to a particular vine they'd found strangling some of the trees.

An hour later she had approved further study of M5S-G72 and placed MX4-57H on their "do not return" list after hearing a report about the giant carnivorous flowers. The final team was just beginning the anthropological report on MY7-G34 when John suddenly tipped out of his chair.

Elizabeth had just enough time to see his eyes roll into the back of his head before he started twitching -- legs kicking, arms flailing, and head banging against the wall in a full-blown seizure. One of the anthropologists screamed and the other two quickly pulled chairs away from John's thrashing body as Elizabeth jabbed at her radio. "This is Dr. Weir. Medical emergency in my office!" She could only watch as his body convulsed again, back arching to lift nearly his entire torso off the floor.

By the time Dr. Beckett arrived with two medics carrying a stretcher behind him, the seizure had passed. John lay unconscious on the floor and blood flowed slowly from a gash in his temple down the side of his ghost-white face. Beckett quickly checked John's vitals and whisked him away on the stretcher, assuring Elizabeth he'd call when he knew anything. She exchanged looks with the shocked anthropologists and said, "Why don't we finish this another day?"

Knowing hovering in the infirmary wouldn't help anything, Elizabeth sat down and glared at the papers still threatening to overtake her desk. She grabbed a pen and began attacking them with gusto. When Teyla and Ronon walked in, just returned from the mainland, she welcomed the distraction.

"We heard something happened to Colonel Sheppard?" Teyla looked questioningly at Elizabeth as Ronon stood stiffly in the doorway.

"Yes. He had a seizure," Elizabeth told her and saw Teyla's confused look. "Convulsions. He was unconscious still when Dr. Beckett took him away."

"Do we know what caused it?" Ronon asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No. They found him sleepwalking last night, too. In that section of the city we'd just opened up. Hopefully Dr. Beckett will have answers for us soon."

"Dr. Weir?" Carson's voice came over the radio as though he had been summoned.

Elizabeth nodded to Teyla and Ronon. "Maybe I'll have the answers right now," she told them and tapped her radio. "Carson! Tell me you have good news."

"I'm afraid not, love." Carson's voice was thin over the radio. "I still don't know what happened, but Colonel Sheppard is awake if you'd like to see him."

"We'll be right there." Elizabeth nodded to Teyla and Ronon and they followed her out of the office.


	3. Chapter 3

John slowly came awake, feeling as though he were fighting through thick cobwebs. He blinked open an eyelid and almost thought better of it when the light sent knives stabbing to the back of his skull. Lifting up an arm to shield his eyes, he was disconcerted to find splints on two of the fingers.

"Doc?" he called out tentatively and winced at how loud his own voice rang in his ears. At least he was in Atlantis' infirmary. Usually when he woke feeling like this he was trapped in someone's dungeon. Or hive ship. Here he'd have a soft bed, and pain medication. And pretty nurses.

Carson's concerned face swam into his vision. "Oh good, you're awake. How do you feel, Colonel?" John blinked experimentally and swallowed. He was pretty sure the doctor couldn't be swaying nearly as much as his eyes were telling him. Not unless he was drunk and about to fall over.

"Like I lost a fight with something big," John told him. His tongue felt large in his mouth.

Carson nodded and pulled a stool beside John's bed, sticking his stethoscope in his ears to listen to John's heart. "Do you remember what happened, son?"

John shook his head and instantly regretted it. His brain seemed to shake a half second slower than his skull. "I don't remember being off planet. I assume the something big that beat me got onto Atlantis." Carson pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and waved it slowly in front of John's eyes. John swallowed hard as the room began to spin again and slammed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw as his stomach turned cartwheels.

He heard Carson sit back on the stool. "You were in a briefing in Dr. Weir's office and had a seizure," he explained. John heard him scribbling something on a chart. "We still don't know why. Here, it looks like you might need this." John opened his eyes as something hard and plastic was placed on his lap. He had enough time to grab the pan before his stomach made good on its promise to dispel the remnants of breakfast.

Carson's hand was a warm spot on his back as he choked up bile and he gratefully accepted the offered glass of water. "Just a wee sip," Carson quietly advised. The water tasted amazing in his mouth but his stomach clearly agreed with the doctor's suggestion. He handed back the mostly full glass and lay back exhausted.

"You said you don't know what happened. Could it be some weird alien flu or something?" he asked Carson quietly.

"Wish I could tell you," Carson sighed. "Do you remember anything before the seizure -- perhaps something off in your vision? Numbness or muscle twitching?"

John gingerly shook his head. "Do you think it'll happen again?" He ignored the persistent voice in his head reminding him that the Air Force grounds pilots who have seizures.

"Can't say until we figure out what caused it this time." Carson laid a hand on John's shoulder. "Don't worry, laddie, we'll figure this out. Why don't you lay back and rest while we find some answers?" John closed his eyes as Carson walked away, calling Elizabeth on the radio. The doc had said not to worry but John had seen in his eyes that Carson wasn't following his own advice. He almost wished Rodney were here to prattle at him endlessly and keep his own thoughts at bay.

"How is he?" John opened his eyes at Elizabeth's voice, grateful to find the room a bit more stable than it was earlier. He looked over to see her flanked by Teyla and Ronon and realized that, however he might actually feel, it was time to play the brave little soldier. Catching Teyla's eye he picked up a hand to wave, thought better of it when he remembered the splinted fingers, and flashed what he hoped was a disarming grin while sliding his hand under the blanket. Teyla's face told him he'd fooled no one.

"How was your harvest?" he asked when Teyla came over to take his other hand.

"Boring," Ronon rumbled beside her.

"It was very productive. We should have a good winter," Teyla told him. "The more important question is how are you doing?" He felt her gently squeeze his fingers and, feeling some returning strength, squeezed back in return.

"I'm fine," John said. Teyla's eyebrow raised in disbelief. "Okay, I'm a little tired and I feel like I just went head to head with this guy." He nodded toward Ronon. "But I feel fine otherwise. Just wish Dr. Beckett could figure out what's wrong so I could get out of here."

"We'll get to the bottom of this, John," Elizabeth assured him from the other side of the bed. "Now you look tired. Why don't we leave and let you rest. Call us if you need anything at all." John nodded. He wouldn't admit it, but he was glad Elizabeth suggested it. His eyelids had been threatening to slam shut but he wanted to put on a good face for them. Teyla leaned over to press her forehead to his and Ronon thunked him once on the shoulder -- he managed not to wince -- and he watched them leave before closing his eyes and relaxing into the pillow.

The rest of the day and following night passed in a sort of haze. Carson came by occasionally to alter the medication in his IV, and whatever it was seemed to keep him sleepy. He wavered in and out of consciousness, waking sometimes to see someone stopping by for a visit, or for one of the med techs to draw another blood sample or usher him to some Ancient medical scanning device. Carson would stop by whenever John was alert to assure him they were getting to the bottom of the problem, but each time John could tell the doctor was more puzzled.

By morning he was considerably more alert and very antsy to get out of the infirmary now that the room was no longer spinning. "Ah, Elizabeth." He focused his attention on her as she entered the room. "Isn't there something in the Geneva Convention about doctors keeping patients after they feel well enough to leave?"

Elizabeth grinned in that way she had that let John know in no uncertain terms that she was merely humoring him. "John, didn't we already decide the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to the Pegasus Galaxy? If Dr. Beckett doesn't want you leaving yet, I'm sure he has a good reason."

John sat up straighter in bed. He was still a bit sore but he really did feel fine. "I think he's just worried because he can't find anything wrong with me. I keep promising I won't go far -- I won't even leave the inhabited parts of the city."

"Right. Because I'm not at all worried about it happening again," Carson remarked, walking up to the bed. "Colonel, just because I don't know what's wrong with you doesn't mean you're fine. Seizures don't happen out of nowhere -- something had to cause it. What if it happens again?"

"Then it happens. And I end up back here just like I was never gone."

Carson sighed heavily and John couldn't resist an internal smirk. "All right, son. I want a few more tests and you can leave for a few hours this afternoon. But I want you back here tonight, and earlier if you feel anything strange. Anything." He waved his finger in front of John's nose before walking away, shaking his head.

John flashed what he hoped was his most disarming grin at Elizabeth but could only see worry etched on her face. "Don't worry, Elizabeth. Really. I'll be fine."

"I hope so," she said, sitting next to his bed with a mug of coffee and what looked suspiciously like more briefing reports. The infirmary was boring enough he almost considered asking to read one.

John had just settled in for a long morning when Dr. Zelenka ran into the room. The scientist looked like he hadn't slept that night and his lab coat trailed behind him, glasses crooked on his nose. "Dr. Weir! Dr. Weir!" he nearly shouted as he skidded to a halt by John's bed. He nodded to John and turned back to Elizabeth.

"Dr. Zelenka! What is it?" John could hear the alarm in Elizabeth's voice.

"You wanted us to check the area of city Colonel Sheppard was in other night?" Radek said, catching his breath. On Elizabeth's nod, he continued, "It all seemed normal but then Dr. Simpson noticed -- there is a subspace signal coming from one of the labs. It is on unusual frequency so we almost didn't find it."

"Is it Wraith?" John asked, feeling adrenaline surging into his veins.

Dr. Zelenka looked at him like he was slightly stupid. "Not from Ancient computer. No, nothing we've seen before. Thing is, thing is we can't turn it off."

"Can't you just unplug it? Shut off power to the lab or the wing?" Elizabeth asked.

Zelenka shook his head. "We tried. Signal appears to have own power source. Is very strange."

"So you have no idea what it is?" Elizabeth asked. "And you can't turn it off?"

"Exactly," Zelenka said, sounding very downcast. "If McKay were here he would be shouting."

"Well, thank god he's back on Earth then," said Elizabeth, smiling gently at Zelenka. "You're every bit as good as McKay, Dr. Zelenka. Now get back there and save the day so you can brag to him about it when he gets back." Zelenka nodded, straightened his glasses, and left the infirmary. Elizabeth turned to raise an eyebrow at John.

"It's almost like he doesn't know what to do without Rodney harassing him," John remarked. He had to admit this place wasn't the same without McKay.

Half an hour later Carson had drawn more blood and placed John inside yet another ancient scanner when Dr. Zelenka called Elizabeth on the radio, a definite improvement on charging through the city. John watched her face from his place on the scanner and saw it slowly fall. When Carson brought John back to bed she looked up. "Doctor, I'm afraid we're going to have to borrow your patient earlier than expected. Zelenka needs him in the lab."

"What?" John and Carson asked in unison. The last thing John wanted to do in his few hours of freedom was help the scientists in some Ancient lab.

"Dr. Zelenka thinks the signal will only turn off with the ATA gene," Elizabeth explained

"Not that I'm not eager to get out of here, but don't some of his scientists have the gene?" John asked.

"Yes," Elizabeth said. "But he thinks it needs to be turned off by the same person who activated it and he thinks you did it during your…midnight stroll."

"Oh," John shrugged. "And he still doesn't know what this lab is?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "He says the computers have an encryption unlike anything he's seen anywhere else in Atlantis. They're working on it but we really need that signal turned off before anyone notices."

John nodded and looked at Carson. "Permission to go on a field trip?"

The doctor nodded reluctantly. "Have Ronon or Teyla go with you. And come back here when you're done."

Soon John was walking down a hallway he'd been to before but didn't remember, Teyla at his side. Dr. Zelenka waved them into a nondescript doorway and John felt something tingle as they walked into the room. This felt very familiar.

"What is it?" Teyla asked, her eyes narrowing as she touched John's arm.

He looked around and shook his head. "Nothing." On a console in the corner a red light blinked slowly on, off, on, off, and John walked over to it. "This your problem, Doc?"

"Yes. That exactly. I think if you could just wave your hand and think it off maybe…" Dr. Zelenka's voice trailed off as John waved his hand over the console.

He stopped with his hand frozen over the light and looked up, slowly scanning the room. It was all so clear now -- what he had to do. He looked at the Athosian and the scientist and could tell they had no idea what was happening. That would make it all so much easier. He reached over to the other end of the console.

"No," John muttered. Then louder: "No!" as he backed away from the console. None of this was right, he didn't know this place, didn't know how to operate this computer. But even as he stepped back his hand kept reaching forwards.

"John?" Teyla's voice was wary, concerned. "John, what is wrong?" Now she sounded suspicious as she reached out to take his arm. That was a mistake.

He grabbed her arm, twisting it just right and pushing her into Dr. Zelenka. As they tumbled to the floor he lunged at the console, slamming both hands flat onto the surface and feeling something surge beneath his fingers. Willing his legs to fling him away, he tried to fight whatever was pulling him, but it was too late. He had just enough time to see the light change briefly to blue and flash off before he pitched backwards and hit the ground hard. To his left Dr. Zelenka was shouting in Czech but John wasn't paying attention. Just before the world went white he felt one leg begin to twitch.


	4. Chapter 4

Elizabeth had heard Teyla's call for help through the radio and headed straight to the infirmary. Before long John had been brought in, unconscious and battered from a second seizure. Behind them Teyla was assisting Dr. Zelenka, who was cradling what turned out to be a broken arm. After grilling Teyla about what happened Beckett had ushered both women out of the infirmary, promising to call them the minute he knew anything. From the defeated look on Dr. Beckett's face when he walked into Elizabeth's office just as she was pouring tea for Teyla, she knew it couldn't be good news.

"Carson." Elizabeth waved him to an empty chair. "It looks like you need to sit down. Can I offer you some tea?"

Carson sat down and waved distractedly, putting the charts he brought on the table in front of him. "That would be lovely. Thank you."

"How is Colonel Sheppard?" Teyla asked.

"Well." Carson ran a hand through his hair. "I have some idea what's causing the seizures but no idea why or how to stop it. And I'm afraid it's just going to get worse. We've induced a coma for now, but I don't know." He shook his head.

"Tell us what you do know," Elizabeth said calmly, giving him a reassuring smile.

"Right. Off-world team members get frequent scans so we have good records of what his brain used to look like." Carson pulled out an Ancient brain scan. The date in the corner indicated it had been taken last month.

"Used to?" Elizabeth asked. She recognized the scan as an image of a brain, but couldn't tell anything else.

Carson nodded and held out a second scan. This one looked much the same but there were several green spots, as though someone had gently flicked a paintbrush with green paint at the picture. "This was taken yesterday morning after the sleepwalking. The green spots are a protein I colored so you could see better. They don't show up in any earlier scans and I didn't even really notice them until I saw this." He pulled out a third scan.

Elizabeth put a hand to her mouth. "That can't be good." This scan was more than just speckled with green. There were small green dots everywhere, clumping together in spots.

"It's not," Carson agreed. "This was the scan I was taking when Dr. Zelenka called to borrow Colonel Sheppard earlier. Something had been nagging me about the earlier image and it wasn't until after seeing this that I found the protein in the earlier one. It's propagating at an alarming rate and seems to be concentrating in certain areas. And given this scan I took twenty minutes ago, we don't have much time to stop it."

He set the final picture face-up on her desk. Nearly the entire image was covered in green dots weaving together, concentrating in spaces and leaving others free. Horrified, Elizabeth picked it up. "Carson, do you know what it is?"

"That's the weird part," he told her. "This protein had to be coded for somewhere, so we looked back at John's DNA. We know John has the ATA gene more strongly than anyone we know. Actually in his DNA the ATA gene has more base pairs than in, say, my ATA gene or anyone else we've found who has it naturally. Most of the proteins the ATA gene codes for are never actually transcribed in our bodies, but somehow the inhibitor for this protein has been removed from John's DNA. I checked back and he used to have it. His DNA has been completely altered."

"So this could be something from the Ancients? Could it have been caused by something he ran into in the city?" Elizabeth asked.

"It's possible, but somehow that doesn't feel right," Carson said. "At the moment I'm more concerned with finding some way to slow down its rate of replication, It's altering the blood flow to his brain, which is what's causing the seizures. I don't know that this will kill him exactly, but I also don't know if we'll be able to repair whatever changes it's making."

"How can we help?" Teyla asked.

Carson shook his head. "I have no idea, love. I've given him some inhibitors that I hope will slow it down but we can't stop it completely."

Elizabeth looked at the charts again. "You developed a gene therapy to give some of us the ATA gene. Could you use a similar process to recreate the inhibitor in John's DNA?"

"It's possible, but I don't think John has the time it would take for us to develop it. And we don't know if whatever removed the inhibitor is still in his system and would just do it again. I did find something else near his cerebellum I haven't yet identified," Carson told her.

"Excuse me, Dr. Weir?" Dr. Zelenka stood in the doorway to her office. His right wrist was enclosed in a cast and held to his body with a sling.

"Radek! Come in." Elizabeth nodded to an empty chair that Dr. Zelenka refused. "How are you feeling?"

Dr. Zelenka looked down at his arm. "Okay. Dr. Beckett says the break is clean and should heal well. But…you wanted to know as soon as we found what the lab with broadcasted signal was for?"

"Yes."

Dr. Zelenka took a step into the office and his next words sent a chill down Elizabeth's spine. "It appears to have been a nanite research facility. From what we've cracked the signal is not words but Arusan base code."

Elizabeth looked at her hands briefly to compose herself and looked up again. In the corner of her eye she could see Carson hastily pick up the scans off her desk, rifling through ones he hadn't yet shown her. "You're sure of this? Do we know what the code is for or anything about the facility? Are there nanites there?"

Dr. Zelenka shook his head. "We have not detected any nanites. Encryption is only partially cracked but appears lab was given to the Asurans for research, before project was abandoned."

"Oh, crap!" Everyone turned to look at Beckett as he held up an image, horrified comprehension crossing his face. "Look here." He pointed to a part of the image near the base of John's skull. There appeared to be a tiny pattern among the grey lobes. "Here and here -- these cells look just like the nanites that invaded Dr. Weir but they're entirely organic -- human even -- so we didn't detect them as foreign when we scanned. If I had to bet I'd say he got infected long ago, when he broke your quarantine." Carson nodded to Dr. Weir. "They must have lain dormant for some time, and we know they could easily replicate and alter John's DNA. But why are they activating now?"

"Because," Teyla pointed out, "we just finally gained access to that lab?"

"Could be," Carson muttered. He looked back at the scan, tracing some pattern with his finger, and looked up again as an alarm klaxon went off.

Elizabeth stood instantly when the unfamiliar flashing lights and alarm echoed through her office. She was halfway to her door when it slammed shut, along with every other door in the control center. Teyla joined her in tugging at the door but it refused to yield to their attempts to open it. A minute later, barefoot and still in scrubs from the infirmary, John walked onto the gateroom floor. Elizabeth raised a fist to bang on the glass, but before she could he drew a stunner and shot the two techs manning the DHD as he climbed the stairs. She lowered her fist and watched, horrified, as John began dialing a gate address.

"Teyla, help me," Elizabeth said, grabbing a chair to fling at the window. John must have heard because, without looking, he reached over and pushed a few buttons. When the chair hit the window there was the brief green glow of a shield, and it bounced harmlessly to the ground.

"How did he do that?" Dr. Zelenka marveled as the chevrons locked in place and a wormhole opened.

"Teyla, do you know that address?" Elizabeth asked.

The Athosian shook her head. "It is unfamiliar to me."

As John descended the stairs Elizabeth tried banging on the glass, only to have the shield fling her across the room. As she hit the wall she could hear Teyla shouting, "Colonel Sheppard, do not do this!" but the sound of the wormhole closing was already reaching the office and Elizabeth knew John would be on the other side.

"Are you okay?" Carson asked, kneeling next to Elizabeth and helping her sit up. She put a hand on the back of her head and winced at the already-forming lump, but nodded as he helped her to her feet.

"Dr. Weir to Ronon." Elizabeth tapped her radio. The silent response came back loud and clear. There wasn't even static.

"Something is jamming our radios," Dr. Zelenka muttered. He was crouched in a corner of the room frantically typing one-handed on the laptop he'd already plugged into the Ancient computer console behind her desk. He shook his head in disgust. "_Hloupy stroje kontolovatelny vse!_ He has managed to completely lock us out of the computer."

"Is that possible?" Elizabeth asked him.

Dr. Zelenka shook his head. "Shouldn't be. But he has ATA gene and" -- he waved his good hand in the air -- "nanites in his brain. They know more about the city than we do. Who knows what is possible?"

"Can you fix it? Get us some control?"

"Can try," Dr. Zelenka muttered, already poking again at the laptop. "Don't tell him I said, but McKay is better at things like this."

Elizabeth turned to Beckett. "I thought you said you'd induced a coma. How'd he get here?"

"I have no idea. I think we have to assume the nanites took over and they can overcome the drugs we were giving Colonel Sheppard." Carson shook his head. "Elizabeth, I fear it may be too late to do anything."

The next few hours felt painfully futile. Teyla paced like a caged cat while Dr. Zelenka frantically worked at the computer. Elizabeth occasionally tried to help, periodically punching in her command code, but every try proved useless. They'd been completely locked out. After a few hours she was sure that even Carson would happily sit in the drone chair if it would help.

Just as Zelenka had exploded into his third tirade of Czech swears, the gate activated. "Look." Teyla pointed but her hand fell as she saw what came through the gate. "What did they do to him?" John came through, supported on each side by an Asuran and flanked by several more. His face was aged, his hair partly gray, and his torn shirt exposed a fresh Wraith feeding mark. He slumped against the Asurans as they dragged him up the stairs. One of them waved John's hand over the control panel to open Elizabeth's door enough to fling him in before it slammed shut again.

"What did you do to him?" Elizabeth demanded through the glass, but they simply turned their backs and began working at the main controls. By her side Teyla crouched next to John's crumpled form.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Teyla asked, tentatively turning him over. His eyes snapped open and he frantically backpedaled along the ground until he was pressed against the glass. Teyla watched him helplessly, arms open at her sides as though approaching a frightened animal.

"No, no, no," John muttered, shaking his head violently from side to side.

Elizabeth shot a questioning look at Carson and slowly knelt down a few feet from John. "John? It's Elizabeth. Can you tell us what's happening?"

John looked wildly around the room and turned around to look at the control room, banging on the glass. "You promised," he whispered, pulling himself upright. "You promised, you promised, you promised!" He was practically shouting and Elizabeth could hear the tapping of his finger splints as he clawed at the glass.

"Colonel Sheppard!" Teyla reached out to him. "You must calm down or you will hurt yourself further." He spun around in her arms, pushed her away, and collapsed back to the ground. He continued shaking his head and muttering to himself, then suddenly stopped and lifted his head rigidly to stare at all of them.

The voice that came from his mouth was cold, nearly mechanical, and raised the hairs on the back of Elizabeth's neck. "We have destroyed the Wraith as Oberoth promised. The High Queen has fed upon this body and become infected. Soon every Wraith will fall. Now we will destroy this city and finally remove the scourge of our creators. This individual" -- one of John's arms raised robotically to point to his chest -- "has proven stubborn. He has convinced us to let you live. We will let you go to the mainland before we destroy the city. But you must go now."

John collapsed back down like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He curled in on himself, rocking slightly, and when he looked up again, Elizabeth could see fear and pain in his eyes. "I tried to fight them," he whispered in his own voice. "But they were too strong. I just…walked up to the Wraith queen and let her feed. The deal was all I could manage." He faded out again, closing his eyes and leaning back against the glass.

His eyes cracked open and Elizabeth could see his mouth moving. She sat next to him and took his hand, stroking his arm. "I'm sorry John, I can't hear you. What are you trying to say?"

He coughed long and hard and looked at her again, fighting to stay conscious. "They agreed to let you call SGC to send the _Daedalus_. Do what they tell you. They'll know if you try anything." He smiled a little and tapped his own head. "I'm sorry. It was all I could do to save you. I couldn't save Atlantis too." His eyes closed again as he sank to the ground.

Elizabeth looked around the room. Dr. Zelenka was unplugging his laptop and shaking his head. Carson stood with slumped shoulders and Teyla sat on the other side of John with her head cocked slightly to one side. "Carson?" Elizabeth asked. "Can you do anything for him?"

Dr. Beckett knelt down, checked John's pulse, and shook his head at Elizabeth. "Not here, I'm afraid. He's breathing and has a pulse but I have no idea what they did to him."

Carson jumped back when John suddenly stood up and looked mechanically around the room. "Dr. Weir?" he asked. Elizabeth nodded and his eyes focused on her. "Your radio will work now. Inform your people to report to what you call the jumper bay for immediate evacuation. Anyone not going straight there will not leave the city. When your people have evacuated you may call your SGC and leave on the last ship."

"What about Colonel Sheppard? Can you fix what you did to him?" Elizabeth asked, fearing the answer.

John's head cocked to the side. "This individual is badly damaged, yet he risked much to save the rest of you. We will leave him when he reaches the mainland but can do nothing more. You must call your people. Now."

Elizabeth shook her head. "You don't have to do this. Your creators no longer live here and we are no threat to you. Let us remain here in peace. We could still be allies. We are not your creators."

"That is why we are allowing you to live. But you must tell your people to leave now." John's whole body sagged against the glass and he looked at her pleadingly. "Elizabeth, it's the only way. Please just do as they say. I can't hold them off much longer."

Elizabeth nodded and raised a trembling hand to her radio. "All hands, this is Dr. Weir. We must evacuate the city immediately. Report to the jumper bay as quickly as you can for transportation to the mainland."


	5. Chapter 5

"McKay!" Carter embraced Rodney as he walked into SGC. "It's good to see you."

"Yes, yes, you too," Rodney said, distractedly patting her back. Any other time he would have been thrilled to get a hug from Carter but right now there was too much else on his mind.

"How was your flight?" She asked.

"Claustrophobic," Rodney informed her. SGC had been kind enough to send an Air Force jet to pick him up: sleek, speedy and very, very small. "You said Elizabeth sent ahead some reports? Can I read them?"

"I thought you might ask that," Carter said, leading Rodney to one of SGC's visitor quarters. She handed Rodney a file of papers that he immediately started leafing through, surprised by how much was there. He hadn't been gone that long. "I haven't had a chance to look at them yet but Colonel Caldwell radioed when they were within range."

Rodney waved a distracted hand at her and looked up in surprise when she caught it in her own hands. "Rodney?" her voice was softer this time. "They lost Atlantis."

For just a minute Rodney waited for Carter to finish her sentence with something like "but we're sending a team to get it back" or "but Dr. Zelenka thinks he can raise it from the ocean again" or "but Colonel Sheppard says the city will be okay until we return." But she just sat and looked at him and slowly he felt the ground drop beneath him. "That's okay," he muttered indistinctly. "We'll just get it back like before."

Carter shook her head. "No, Rodney, it's not like that. The Asurans set off the self-destruct. It's completely gone, along with its gate." She squeezed his hand tighter. "And, Rodney, it sounds like Colonel Sheppard is in bad shape."

Rodney thought about this a minute and pulled away from Carter's hand. "If I know Dr. Beckett he's already got twenty different ideas on how to make Sheppard better. He'll be fine by the time they get here, you'll see." He picked up the mission report -- any distraction was worth it.

"Right," Carter said worriedly. "Can I get you anything? Coffee?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, coffee would be good," Rodney said, already engrossed in the first page. "And do you have any sandwiches?"

"What kind?"

"It doesn't matter." He didn't look up when she left, or when some young Air Force lieutenant brought him coffee and a turkey sandwich. It tasted like sawdust in his mouth anyway.

Several hours later most of the coffee still sat cold and untouched, and the sandwich, minus two bites, was still clutched in his hand like a security blanket. He'd read the report four times and it had never gotten any better. Elizabeth's words had been interspersed with Carson's and Radek's and Teyla's, and even Ronon had overcome his caveman ways enough to write something, but none of it was good. Rodney put the sandwich on the table and stood up to stretch.

He couldn't get Elizabeth's final paragraphs out of his head: _As Dr. Beckett piloted the jumper away from Atlantis we could see multiple explosions throughout the city. The central tower crashed down, taking down the smaller towers like dominos. By the time we were out of sight the city had completely disappeared beneath the ocean. We stayed at the Athosian settlement until the Daedalus arrived and settled the Athosians, along with Ronon Dex, on a suitable planet before heading back to Earth. The Daedalus's sensors could detect nothing of Atlantis beyond rubble at the ocean's floor._

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard fought the Asurans as hard as he could but lost consciousness soon after we reached the mainland. He has yet to wake. Dr. Beckett believes the nanite invaders have left him as promised but they left large amounts of damage behind. He tells us that until he fully understands what they did to Sheppard he will have no idea if it can be repaired but I fear he has lost hope. We will all remember the sacrifice Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard made and how hard he fought to buy our lives. His bravery and self-sacrifice deserve commendation

Rodney wasn't sure if he was sad or angry or frustrated or just plain old depressed. For all his complaining to Sheppard about premonitions before he'd left Atlantis, he hadn't actually expected anything like this to happen. A plumbing problem or flickering lights, sure; maybe even some new flooding or a Wraith attack. But not the loss of the entire city. And of Sheppard.

He realized he was pacing up and down the room. If Teyla were around he'd find her to teach him that Athosian stick fighting right now -- anything to get the itchy feeling of helplessness off his skin. Without thinking he grabbed a pillow off the bed and flung it at the wall, accidentally knocking the alarm clock off the dresser and onto his foot..

"Ow, ow, ow. Smart move Rodney," he scolded himself, hopping on one foot. "You're mad about what happened so you try to break your toe. That'll help. Real smart."

"Rodney?" He froze at the voice and turned to find Elizabeth standing in the doorway. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks and had cried more than once in the interim. He stared at her a minute, unsure, then walked over and opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace and he wrapped his arms around her a little awkwardly. He could swear she started crying on his shoulder.

After a minute she pulled back, wiping her eyes with her sleeve and looked at him again. "It's good to see you, Rodney," she said quietly.

"So it's true then? Atlantis is gone?" he asked. She nodded without offering up any more information. He didn't want to ask, but he had to. "Where's Colonel Sheppard?"

"They beamed him straight to the isolation room in the infirmary. I just came from there -- Carter told me you were here. Would you like to see him?" she asked, already turning to lead him down the hallway, away from his cold coffee and uneaten sandwich.

Rodney sat next to Elizabeth on one of the stools and peered through the windows into SGC's bare, concrete isolation room. Sheppard lay in red scrubs on the bed in the middle of the room, and Rodney stared at the streaks of grey in his hair. Only the steady heartbeat displayed on the monitor next to him betrayed that he was still alive, and several doctors wore full hazmat gear as they bustled around the room filled with a variety of Ancient, Asgard, and Earth-based equipment. One of the doctors looked up, waved to them and headed for the door.

A minute later Carson joined them in the viewing area. Rodney couldn't help noticing that he looked even more tired than Elizabeth, if that was possible. "Rodney. I never thought it'd be so good to see you," Cason sighed as he sat next to Rodney. "Have you heard what happened?"

"Yes." He was surprised at how angry he sounded and softened his tone. "So what magic trick are you going to pull out this time, Carson?"

Carson put his head in his hands, elbows on the rail in front of him. "I'm afraid there may very well be nothing we can do. The Asurans completely re-wired his brain so they could control him and then they left -- we're sure of that now -- but the damage is extensive. They removed all of John's controls to create new pathways and, medicine's come a long way but we just don't know how to rewire a brain. Neural tissues don't regenerate well."

"Are you saying John might still be in there? That he might be conscious and aware?" Elizabeth asked in a voice full of hope.

"There's no way to be certain, but it's a possibility. But even if he were, there's no way to know, and we don't know how to get him free." Carson sounded small and lost to Rodney's ears.

"So what, you're just giving up?" Rodney snapped. He knew it wasn't fair, he knew they were hurting too and doing the best they could, but he just didn't care.

"No, Rodney, we're not. But I don't know if we have any miracles left. Colonel Sheppard's already cheated death so many times. Maybe he's used up his luck." Rodney marveled at Carson's ability to stay calm through all this. But then, he'd had longer to process what happened.

"Carson…?" Elizabeth said questioningly as she rose from her stool and pointed through the window. The doctors had been halfway through removing their hazmat gear and suddenly were swarming around Sheppard. "What's happening? Carson?" But Beckett was already partway down the hallway. Elizabeth took one look at Rodney and they hurried after him.

"Excuse me. Move aside, please," Carson elbowed the other doctors aside and Elizabeth and Rodney followed in his wake. It took Rodney a minute to realize what the commotion was about -- Shepard's eyes were open and watching the movement around him.

"Colonel Sheppard!" Elizabeth called, but got no response. "John? Can you hear us?" she asked quietly. Sheppard continued to lie motionless until she took his hand. His head angled slowly towards her but Rodney saw no recognition in his eyes.

Rodney stood with Elizabeth as the doctors examined Sheppard. His head turned toward them when they talked or touched an arm or leg, but there was no indication of recognition or understanding, no attempt to move or speak. After a while Rodney couldn't stand it any longer, and he left the infirmary and kept walking until he hit the first elevator, then the second, and eventually he'd climbed partway up one of the hills outside SGC.

Carter found him out there, half an hour later, shivering slightly in the cold. He ignored her as she draped his jacket over his shoulders and sat down next to him, shifting to find a comfortable place among the rocks. At first he was thankful for her silence, but eventually it began to feel like a battle of wills and somehow, with Carter, he knew he was going to lose.

Rodney picked up a rock and tossed it between his hands before standing up to throw it at the lengthening shadows. He turned his back to Carter before he spoke. "If you're here to tell me to go back in there and everything's going to be fine, don't bother."

Carter was quiet longer than he expected and he finally gave in and turned to face her. She sat with her chin resting on her knees and arms wrapped around her legs, her face glowing red in the light of the setting sun. After a minute she looked up at him, shielding her eyes and shook her head. "I wasn't going to tell you that."

"Oh." He stooped down to pick up another rock, rubbing his thumb over the gritty smoothness and small imperfections. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."

"I know." Her words were quiet.

"I mean…we knew it was risky when we went. We almost lost Sheppard…Atlantis lots of times, but we always managed to win her back. How could they let this happen? How could they just give up like that?" He tried to work up a good rant but it just stuttered and died. "How could I leave them?"

"It's not your fault, McKay," Carter told him.

"Like hell it's not! I knew something wasn't right but I left them anyway and flew off to another galaxy just so I could be with Jeannie. I selfishly left them and now Atlantis is gone and Sheppard is…is…I don't know. Gone too, I think." He threw the rock as hard as he could, starting a miniature avalanche of pebbles.

Carter waited for the sound of sliding rocks to subside before she sighed and looked up at Rodney. "You don't know if you could have done anything had you been there. It's awfully arrogant to assume you could have saved everything."

"Yes, well, as you've pointed out, I'm an extremely arrogant man," Rodney snapped.

Carter stood to look Rodney in the eye. "Rodney, trust me, eating yourself up with guilt isn't going to change what happened. It isn't going to help you, and it isn't going to help them. Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett, Dr. Zelenka, even Colonel Sheppard -- they need you now. Being angry at yourself isn't going to help."

"I have to be angry at myself," Rodney met Carter's eye, then looked away. "It's the only way I can not be furious at them."

"Oh," Carter said quietly. "I'm not going to say I know how you're feeling." Rodney snorted at her and she looked at him sternly. "But I've had a lot of things happen over my years going through the stargate and I think I understand better than most. When you realize you need to talk, you can come find me." She didn't wait for him to respond but simply turned and walked away. Rodney watched her back slowly retreat into the setting sun and sat down with a sigh. He didn't come back inside until the stars came out and the night's chill had begun settling into his bones.

Over the ensuing weeks they sat through unceasing debriefs and meetings. They inventoried what they'd managed to salvage from the city -- information from the database, random Ancient devices that had been sent back to SGC for investigation, and a handful of puddle jumpers. Sheppard showed no improvement -- he'd react to stimulus but there was no sign of recognition or consciousness, no attempt to communicate in any way. Rodney avoided everyone as much as possible, hiding in his temporary quarters or abandoned corners of labs whenever he could.

By the time they finished the last debrief and closed the book on the Atlantis mission, Rodney was itchy to get away from all this, even turning down an offer to be back to work at Area 51. He had fled the minute the meeting was over and was settling into his room with the newest pop-culture physics book -- hoping to relax by writing a nasty letter telling the author everything he was wrong about -- when there was a knock on the door. He tried ignoring it but the person just wouldn't go away. Finally he yanked open the door in disgust. "What do you want?"

Zelenka stood there glaring back at Rodney. He raised a hand -- there was a brace on the wrist under which Rodney could see pale skin from where the cast had been -- and shook a finger in front of Rodney's nose. "You," he said sternly, "are being an ass."

"What?" Rodney squeaked. "Just because I want a nice quiet night reading doesn't mean…"

Zelenka interrupted him. "I'm not talking about that."

"Then why am I an ass?" Rodney snapped back, glaring at Zelenka as he crossed his arms on his chest.

Zelenka matched his glare and began counting off on his fingers. "You've left us to take care of all the Ancient equipment for study. You avoid Colonel Sheppard's bed like he has a plague. You snap at Dr. Beckett whenever he asks you anything. You won't look Dr. Weir in the eye. And you hide in here rather than talking to any of us."

"Yeah? So?" Rodney knew Zelenka was right, but he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.

"So. You will put on nicer clothes. And you will come to dinner with us. I will be back in ten minutes and if you are not ready I will fetch team of marines to drag you out." Zelenka gave Rodney one final glare and stalked down the hallway. Rodney watched his retreating back before turning in and riffling through his drawers for a shirt that wasn't too dirty or wrinkled.

Zelenka led Rodney down the corridor and opened a door to a small room with a table and plates of food. Elizabeth looked up as Rodney entered. "I see Radek convinced you to join us. Pull up a chair." Rodney sat in the seat she indicated and gave the spaghetti in front of him his full concentration until the door opened and Carson entered, pushing a wheelchair in which Sheppard was sitting, staring at nothing. Rodney put his fork back on his plate and struggled to swallow the food still in his mouth.

"Why'd you have to bring him here?" he asked, looking anywhere but at Sheppard.

"Because, Rodney," Carson said, sitting next to Sheppard. "This is our last meal together -- Radek is heading to Antarctica in the morning and Colonel Carter told us you were going back to Canada." Carson left no room to wonder whether he thought that sort of information ought to have come from Rodney himself, and Rodney felt the smallest twinge of guilt at not telling them his plans to leave.

"Yes, well, we're done here and Jeannie and Caleb could use help with the new baby and…" Rodney let his voice fade because he really had no good excuse for wanting to leave them so soon.

"Oh, right, the baby!" Elizabeth exclaimed, putting her fork down. "With everything else I forgot to ask. Is it a boy or girl? Did you bring pictures?"

"A boy -- they named him Bradley after, after our father," Rodney stole a glance at John and looked away. "And no, I didn't bring pictures. I had other things on my mind. But he looks just like any other baby. He's wrinkly, doesn't have much hair and all he seems to do is sleep, eat, and poop. Honestly, I don't see the appeal."

"I think it may be because they eventually grow beyond that," Elizabeth told him, smirking slightly. "You'll have to send us pictures when you get back."

"Yeah, sure." Rodney looked down at his plate but felt an unusual lack of appetite. "So you're sticking around for a bit?"

"Yes, well, SGC wants me to work on some negotiations and, believe it or not, there's still some final work to do on Atlantis -- a few more strings to tie up, some stuff I want to translate." Elizabeth twirled her fork through her spaghetti. "And I don't want to leave John yet. Carson…"

Carson broke in. "I'm not going anywhere until I figure out what they did to Sheppard. I can't just walk away from a patient."

"Don't you understand?" Rodney couldn't hold it all inside anymore. "Sheppard is gone! You let him sacrifice himself like he always does and it worked this time. They should have just killed him but instead they gave him back worse…" He looked over at Sheppard. The colonel sat slumped in the wheelchair staring uncomprehendingly across the table, through Zelenka, into the opposite wall and, for all Rodney knew, to the far side of the galaxy. There was no Sheppard glimmer of mischief in his eyes, no smirk turning up the corner of his mouth. He just sat there. "Worse than dead!"

"Rodney!" Elizabeth reached out a hand to take Rodney's. "We don't know that. You shouldn't give up on him just yet."

Rodney stood up, wrenching his arm from Elizabeth's grasp. He was done with dinner. "They should have just killed him," he said quietly as he headed to the door. He stopped before he opened it and turned back. "You have fun with the Ancient toys in Antarctica." He pointed to Zelenka, then Weir, then Beckett. "I hope the Asgard give you some slack on the negotiations and you, good luck on your hopeless task."

He had the door partly opened when Elizabeth called his name. Something in her voice -- the way it was nearly cracking -- made him freeze in the doorway. "Rodney, you can't just give up. You know John wouldn't give up if it was you."

"Yes, well, I suppose that just made him better than me," Rodney sniffed. He looked longingly at the open doorway but closed the door and turned back around. "They took his mind, Elizabeth. They didn't torture him or cut off a leg or shoot him or kill him, they just snuck in and took away his mind. We're ultimately just a bunch of chemical reactions and electronic discharges and they destroyed him as easily as I could wipe the hard drive of your computer. And last I checked we couldn't make back-ups of people."

Radek put his face in his hands, Carson poked at his spaghetti and Elizabeth just stared at Rodney. The only sound in the room was the quiet, nearly mechanical rhythm of Sheppard's breathing. "Look." Rodney slumped against the door. "I know it's not your fault. I know you did everything you could. And I admire the way you're hanging onto hope, I really do. But I just can't do it. Not now, maybe not ever. It's not that I don't care. I just…" He stopped and looked at them, waving his hand dismissively. The words were gone.

"At least stay with us a while, Rodney," Elizabeth told him quietly, waving her arm at the chair he'd left vacant. Rodney slumped his shoulders, defeated, and sat in the chair to poke disinterestedly at his plate. Zelenka nodded to him approvingly. Dinner passed in good-natured small talk and a lot of conversations that started with "Do you remember when…" and soon Rodney was in his small room shoving wrinkled shirts and piles of paper into suitcases.

The walk down the corridors of SGC felt somehow final and he stopped for a while to stare at the Earth stargate and its primitive analog dialing -- so much less impressive than Atlantis's. As he headed for the elevator his feet carried him to one more room.

The lights were dim in Sheppard's room, and monitors beeped quietly on the wall. Rodney couldn't tell if Sheppard was asleep or awake, but he supposed it didn't really matter much. Taking a deep breath, he approached Sheppard's bedside and looked at the colonel, relieved his eyes were closed because Rodney could at least pretend he was just asleep.

"Well, I guess this is good-bye then. I know I've been acting like an ass lately and I just wanted to say…I'm sorry. I know we had a habit of saving each other's lives and I know I let you down sometimes, but I'm sorry I wasn't there the one time you really needed me." He looked at Sheppard another minute, reaching a hand to brush the silver-tinged black hair away from the colonel's eyes. If Sheppard's chest hadn't been slowly rising and falling Rodney would have thought he was looking at a corpse. He turned to go but paused in the doorway. "I really do hope Carson finds the answer."

Rodney McKay straightened his back and walked down the hallway, up the elevators and out of SGC into the cool morning light. He never looked back.


	6. Chapter 6

The memory of Atlantis grew less painful as each year went by. Elizabeth settled back into the world of international, not intergalactic, diplomacy, and guest-lectured at Georgetown University when she wasn't proctoring meetings on global warming in Japan or trying to broker some form of shaky peace in the Middle East. After the living pulse of Atlantis her townhouse in Georgetown felt barren, lifeless, almost skeletal. But that was something else she'd managed to get used to.

Initially she had tried to hold the Atlantis team together -- arranging reunions, sending emails and Christmas cards -- but over the years it began to feel more and more artificial. With members spread out from Canada to Scotland to Japan with missing pieces still in the Pegasus Galaxy, each reunion felt more a mourning of what they'd lost than an effort to continue friendships with increasingly less in common. Eventually it deteriorated into the occasional postcard from Prague or detour to Scotland while attending meetings in London. Messages from Canada were few and far between.

So when she was woken at six a.m. by a furious pounding on her door, the last thing she expected was to see Rodney McKay peering through the glass, holding a copy of _The Washington Post_ in a futile attempt to block the deluge of rain. She must have waited a little too long looking at him through the curtain, for when she opened the door he plowed in like a personal rainstorm, handing her the newspaper and stammering, "I thought you weren't going to let me in," as he dripped in her entryway.

"You'll forgive me, Rodney," she sighed, placing the sodden, ink-smeared mess on the boot tray. "It's been a long time since an astrophysicist decided to wake me up at the crack of dawn."

"Yes. Well, I was in the area," he commented, rubbing the water out of his thinning hair. "The University of Maryland asked me to come enlighten their physics students on the newest wonders of subspace theory, and while I doubt any of them could even grasp the simplest concept of what I had to say, I did manage to draw a full lecture hall."

"Good for you. And don't think I'm not glad to see you, but why are you dripping on my floor at six in the morning?"

"The faculty sponsored a reception -- quite good actually -- with those little crabcakes and shrimp and those cheeses they curl just right on a toothpick. It was at the Air and Space Museum and I kept looking at all the planes and spaceships and I spent all night walking around D.C. thinking and -- you said he'd been transferred here now?"

Elizabeth didn't have to ask whom Rodney was talking about. They'd kept John at SGC for several years and brought in the best neuroscientists in the galaxy to look at him. Carson, out of his specialty, had hovered longer than he should have. They all shared the bitter taste of his defeat when he'd finally returned to Scotland. SGC worked a little longer, ensuring there would be no intelligence leaks before finally releasing their patient.

Elizabeth nodded, ushering Rodney into her kitchen and handing him a towel. "A few years back. He's at a VA medical center about two hours north of here. I've seen him a few times. I take it you haven't made it out there yourself?"

It had been a long time since she's watched Rodney hunt for what to say, and Elizabeth recognized an underlying guilt in his eyes. "I don't like seeing him like that. I don't think he'd want me too." Rodney focused on some spot twenty feet beyond her left shoulder. "Can you take me?"

For a minute the suddenness, the audacity of this last-minute request startled her, but she owed each of these men her life several times over and the answer was easy. "Sure. I can have someone else cover my lecture today. I'll have to call some people. Make yourself at home and I'll be back in a bit." He was rummaging through her refrigerator before she was out the door and calling out to ask where her coffee was before she'd reached the top of the stairs.

Soon Elizabeth found herself battling D.C. morning traffic with Rodney in the passenger seat prattling on about some new physics research he was conducting. She looked up when she caught Zelenka's name somewhere between anti-neutrinos and Schrödinger's cat. "Rodney, did you just say you're collaborating with Dr. Zelenka?"

"Yes, well, it turns out he's the only scientist in academia who can almost keep up with me. I must have worn off on him a bit in Atlantis. College students seem to like the chance to visit other places so we collaborate and allow students to go on exchanges between our labs. I send fearless Canadians into the Czech Republic and he sends his best students to McGill so I can properly educate them."

"McGill?"

Rodney squirmed a moment and addressed the rain out the window. "It's near Jeannie. Did you know I have a godson now? Robby is only four and he's already drawing integrals with his finger paints. And Bradley just had his first piano recital and Madison won her school science fair."

Elizabeth grinned. "I'm not surprised. With a brilliant mother and your influence on top."

"I suppose I should ask what you've been up to. I notice Israel and Palestine are still fighting so you haven't had any luck there," Rodney commented. "Did you ever manage to track down that Simon fellow again?''

"I…we tried for a while. But there's too much I couldn't tell him about and it just didn't work." She'd spent two months folding and unfolding the paper with Simon's new number before she'd finally called and found him single. They had tried but after the initial rush the silences between them only grew. One morning she woke and he was gone. She never bothered to look. "You're right, we haven't had a lot of success in the Middle East but SGC has called me back to re-negotiate with the Asgard. I don't think Hermiod misses you."

Rodney gave a disgusted snort and soon fell back to telling her about physics. Rodney's science was no longer life or death for her, and she found she could tune him out. His voice was almost as soothing as the rain on the car roof. When they passed the NSA he switched briefly to his summer working there in college and the idiot mathematician they put in charge of him, but thankfully he talked himself to sleep just before the Goddard Space Flight Center so she didn't have to hear about whichever NASA scientist tried to go toe-to-toe with Dr. Rodney McKay.

When the car reached the long bridge that spanned the meeting of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay, Elizabeth gently nudged Rodney's shoulder. "Wake up, McKay, we're almost there."

Rodney jolted awake and momentary confusion darted across his eyes. He looked out over the bridge -- the expanse of water stretching to the morning mist. "At least he's near water. He'd want that. Though it doesn't compare to Atlantis's ocean."

"Nothing could," Elizabeth commented, turning into the sleepy town and curving around towards the VA medical center. Rodney was fidgeting in the passenger seat. "Rodney, you haven't seen John since you left SGC, have you?"

"I told you, I didn't want to see him like that," Rodney pointed out, then looked over at her. "Is he bad?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "In some ways, yes. But I'm not convinced he isn't still there somewhere. You weren't there but he was fighting it right until the end. Sometimes, when I visit, I think he almost recognizes me. And just because you're scared doesn't mean you didn't owe him a visit."

"I'm visiting him now, aren't I?" Rodney snapped. Elizabeth slowed down as they drove onto the VA property, greeted first by a small village of dilapidated houses. Rodney couldn't hide his disgust. "This is how your country treats its veterans? What are these, leftovers from World War II?"

"Actually, they were built a little before that. The hospital isn't much to look at, but it's a good mental facility and they wanted John near somebody who'd visit," she told him as they left the village and headed toward a cluster of old buildings huddled together against the grey day.

Elizabeth navigated the car into a spot near a white building covered in pockmarked stucco. The sweeping porch would be at home in a Southern plantation, and several patients sat in wheelchairs under the overhang, watching the choppy waters. Rodney made no attempt to unbuckle his belt after she turned the engine off. "You know, it's not too late to turn back."

"Rodney McKay. You woke me up, you made me reschedule a lecture, and you made me drive you up here. I'm not leaving until you've seen him. You owe him that much." Rodney almost looked like a petulant child and for a second Elizabeth imagined him throwing a temper tantrum as she got out of the car.

Three steps away she heard the other car door slam behind her. Rodney's voice called out, quiet and raw, "My father had Alzheimer's."

It was probably the one thing McKay could say that would get her to stop walking. She turned and faced him. "What?"

Rodney stood with the car between him and Elizabeth, studying some imperfection on the car's roof. "He was a physicist and always wanted to make the next great discovery, but he missed out on the Manhattan Project and then I was born and he had to become a teacher to feed the family. Instead he lived through me and Jeannie -- buying us electronics sets, teaching us mechanics at the kitchen table. But he started forgetting Einstein and Tesla and Planck and then he started forgetting us and then he forgot himself." Rodney looked up at Elizabeth and she saw a nakedness in his eyes she'd never seen before. "I can't think of anything more terrifying than what they did to Sheppard."

"I know, Rodney. But you still owe him a visit. C'mon, it won't be that bad. Easier than most of our days on Atlantis. No one will be bent on killing you." Elizabeth smiled and held out a hand, gently propelling Rodney toward the door.

The nurse who took them down the labyrinthine hallway was young and chatty and managed to render McKay somewhat tongue-tied. "Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard is one of the youngest patients on this ward. We've got mostly older veterans who have senior dementia and Alzheimer's. Of course there's some from the more recent wars -- Iraq mostly -- who are being treated for PTSD. We keep the more violent ones in another building. Sheppard is definitely one of our favorite patients. Hardly ever gives the nurses any trouble."

She opened the door to a room and announced cheerily, "Johnny, some of your friends are here to see you!"

Rodney opened his mouth at the "Johnny," clearly ready with some clever retort, but closed it again when he looked into the room. It looked like any nursing home -- a standard hospital bed with not-so-standard arm restraints next to a sink with one of those unbreakable mirrors they put in psych wards. A large window displayed the Bay and a solitary sailboat braving the choppy waters.

The man in the wheelchair half-looking out the window could not have been more clearly John Sheppard. Or more clearly not. His hair was graying, particularly at the temples, around the face, and most of his full beard. His eyes stared unfocused out the window at the sky or the water or the boats or nothing. On his lap was a lunch tray and in his trembling hand a spoon that seemed to have succeeded in getting applesauce nearly everywhere but his mouth.

"Oh, Johnny," the nurse scolded, removing the tray from his lap and mopping his face with a damp towel. "Your friends are here to visit you! We can't have you entertaining guests with applesauce on your shirt, now can we?" she asked, in a voice so saccharine Elizabeth could practically feel Rodney flinch. "Johnny still has decent motor skills and he can obey commands, but he doesn't ever think to do things himself. The doctors say it's good therapy for him to feed himself, but sometimes it gets a bit messy," the nurse explained as she opened a drawer in the small dresser and removed a black turtleneck.

"Okay, Johnny, arms up." Obedient as a puppet, John raised his arms and the nurse removed his dirty shirt. Elizabeth couldn't believe how thin he'd gotten -- she could nearly count his ribs from across the room. The scars on John's body stood out in stark relief on the pale skin. Some of them she recognized from Atlantis missions, but others had origins she could only guess. Wraith feeding marks still stood out prominently on his chest.

Before long the nurse left with a quick, "Bye, Johnny! Have a good time with your friends!" and Elizabeth was left with an obviously uncomfortable McKay shifting his weight beside her.

"John?" she asked, walking over to sit on the empty chair across from John's wheelchair. "John, it's Elizabeth. I've brought Rodney here to see you. He says he's sorry he hasn't come sooner." John didn't take his eyes away from their blank stare out the window. Elizabeth watched his face a minute and reached out to take his hand, repressing her shock at how old and boney it felt. His head snapped to her and she swore she saw a flash of recognition in his eyes before he returned to staring at the water.

"Sheppard?" Rodney's voice was tentative, almost a whisper as he crossed the room. "John? I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I just…" Rodney's words trailed off as he sat on the end of John's bed. He looked helplessly at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth sighed and looked back at John. "Hey, John. We miss you. Carson called the other week. His wife just had a baby girl, so Michael is a big brother now. They named her Johanna after you, John. And Zelenka just won some big physics award and helped his nephew win the school science fair. And look, this time I don't have to tell you about Rodney because he finally came to visit you."

Elizabeth looked pointedly at Rodney, who coughed and looked down at his feet. "Rodney. You've come this far."

"Yes, yes," Rodney sighed. "Hi, Colonel. It's been a while and I'm sorry I haven't visited you sooner. Oh, and I'm sure Jeannie says hi too. It's your fault we're talking again, you know. I, uh…"

"Good morning, Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard! Are you ready for today's therapy?" a male voice shouted into the room, causing Rodney to jump about a foot in the air. Elizabeth turned to see a young-looking doctor in the doorway. "Oh, hello there. I didn't realize Colonel Sheppard had visitors. I'm Dr. Thompson," he greeted them, holding out his hand expectantly.

Elizabeth stood, rubbed her palm on her jeans, and shook his hand. "Dr. Elizabeth Weir." He had a firm handshake that paused for just a second when she said her title. Anyone who hadn't been frequently meeting with diplomats and playing games of chess over nuclear weapons probably would have never noticed. "I'm not a medical doctor -- I'm in International Relations. I teach at Georgetown. And this is…"

Rodney interrupted her, standing up to take the doctor's hand, "Dr. Rodney McKay. Astrophysics and mechanical engineering."

Dr. Thompson's eyebrows rose at the introductions. "Quite the powerful room we have here," he joked. "Elizabeth Weir," he said pensively. "Colonel Sheppard doesn't have any kin listed. Were you a girlfriend who got away?"

Rodney gave a quick laugh and Elizabeth felt her cheeks redden. "Hardly. Rodney and I worked with John on a joint civilian-military project for several years before he…before he got ill." SGC never actually told her what the official medical story was for John but she was sure this doctor didn't have high enough security clearance to know the truth of what happened.

His eyes lit up at this bit of information. "You were with him when this happened? In that case maybe you could help me. Would you mind coming to my office briefly?" His enthusiasm reminded her a little of when Rodney entered her office on Atlantis with some new Ancient discovery and she felt the familiar thrill of excitement. She nodded to Rodney and followed the doctor into the depressingly yellow hall.

"I've been trying to get them to repaint this building ever since I got here," he told her in a babble that could almost put McKay to shame. "Nothing worse than a depressing paint job in a mental health institution. But junior doctors don't get any pull. I've been working here a few months and I have to say John is one of the most interesting patients I've ever encountered. I'm hoping you can shed some light on a few things."

He opened a door to reveal a cramped office. A wooden desk was shoved into a corner and lit by an old-fashioned desk lamp. One bookcase was full of books and another of plastic tubs stuffed with enough art supplies to make a kindergartner drool. Most of the room was taken up by easels and a table surrounded by five chairs, and the walls were covered in artwork. Elizabeth first thought he must just be a proud parent, but when she examined it more closely she could see multiple hands at work. Most of it looked the work of six year olds but a few pieces showed more refined skill, or as much as could be had using kindergarten supplies on butcher paper.

"This is very impressi --" She stopped sharply in her perusal of the room. Tucked neatly behind the door was a piece apparently done with finger paint. The medium didn't allow for fine details and the finger wielding the paint was a bit shaky, but in the center was unmistakably a stargate -- and the symbols sketched haphazardly around it were etched forever into her mind and the minds of her team -- the gate address to Atlantis. "I assume you are a proponent of art therapy. This must all be your patients' work?" She prayed he didn't notice the pause in her sentence, or the picture she was looking at when it happened. She'd worked with enough counselors to know it was unlikely.

"That's right," he said, stepping over to join her by the door. "Art used to be predominately used when treating children, but I find it can be an especially effective tool with adults too, particularly ones like your friend who show no other indication of communication. Some of these pieces date back to my earliest patients while I was still earning my degree and some, like this one here done by your friend," -- he removed the stargate picture from the wall and handed it to her -- "are more recent."

The paint was an electric blue and the stargate a simple circle with nine triangles skirting the rim. The gate symbols were scattered almost randomly across the page, some large and some small but unquestionably Atlantis. A smudge in the paint at the rightmost symbol showed a clear fingerprint left behind by the artist.

"John drew this?" she asked quietly, knowing the answer. The painting shook a bit in her hand.

"He did. It took me several sessions to get him to freely touch the paint and several more for him to actually put it to paper. This is the first drawing I've gotten out of him and it only happened last week. I was coming to get him to try again today when I found you," he explained, guiding her to a padded armchair and sitting across from her.

"The pictures you see on the walls are a representative sampling of what I usually see in my work. Most patients draw representations of what they see -- people, places, nature -- or fill the page with patterns and shapes or the occasional letters, numbers, and even words," he explained. "This piece Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard did is unique. These symbols are obviously important and yet they are nothing like any language or symbol I can find. I was hoping, since you worked with him, perhaps you could give me some insight."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Elizabeth shook her head and placed the painting on the table next to her. "I've traveled the world quite a bit and I speak several languages but I've never seen anything like this. How can you be so sure they're symbols and not just random doodles?" Her long career in diplomacy had served her well in learning to keep calm while lying, and she prayed that she wasn't somehow betraying John this time.

"For patients like we have here it's rare for a drawing to have absolutely no meaning. Plus the way these symbols are designed -- the symmetry and asymmetry and the arrangement -- along with the deliberation John appeared have while drawing them -- all indicate they are likely to have meaning." He looked at her appraisingly. "It's a shame you don't recognize them. John is such a frustrating patient sometimes. He doesn't seem to communicate or interact at all but I get the feeling he was a very intelligent man. I hoped perhaps we'd finally found a way he could talk with us."

Elizabeth was silent for a long time, and then shook her head. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I can't help you."

She could tell he didn't quite believe her but he smiled anyway and stood up, holding out his hand. "It was nice meeting you, Dr. Weir. And if you do think of anything, you will call me? You do understand we're all on Sheppard's side here."

After shaking his hand, she looked again at the painting. "Would you mind if I borrowed this?" He wordlessly handed it to her and she walked quickly out of his office. She had to show this to Rodney.

John's room was empty when she got there, but she looked out the window to see two figures at the water's edge. The waterfront wasn't far and John's wheelchair was parked next to a set of bleachers Elizabeth suspected must be popular with summer fishermen. The breeze coming off the water smelled faintly of seawater with the sour hint of crabs and pollution. John was standing up and leaning against the railing, his arms spread wide like a child imitating an airplane, disheveled hair ruffling in the breeze. Rodney was next to him, back to the water and eyes a million miles away.

"Rodney," she called as she got close. "You have to see this."


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn't hard convincing Elizabeth they shouldn't tell SGC about Sheppard's newfound penchant for finger-painting - she'd never trusted the military much more than he had. And it wasn't hard arranging a sabbatical at Princeton University -- Dr. Simpson had been begging Rodney for a while to come by and yell the cocky Princeton undergraduates into shape. Rodney did have a little trouble convincing them to let him stay in Einstein's house, but the bragging rights were worth the extra effort. He secretly hoped to find some scrap of paper lost behind the heater with the key to Unification Theory. Hell, after everything he'd seen in the stargate program, he wouldn't be surprised to have Einstein's ghost visit.

During the week Rodney gave lectures to befuddled undergrads and seminars to equally clueless graduate students. He worked with the other professors on their research and sat in his office scribbling notes on wormhole theory and ideas for ZedPM construction. Each Saturday morning he'd climb into his car with a stack of papers and a handful of red pens and drive down to Maryland.

After not seeing Sheppard for six years, Rodney was surprised by how quickly they settled into a comfortable routine -- though Rodney was certainly the more proactive participant. He'd try to arrive after breakfast so as not to have to watch the nurses clean up the mess Sheppard inevitably made. Rodney was pretty sure even his nephews hadn't been that creative with applesauce.

Rodney would greet Sheppard and the colonel would ignore him. He'd place some paper in front of Sheppard and finger paints at first but crayons, markers, colored pencils and even watercolors as the months rolled on. Sometimes Sheppard would draw right away, spending all day intent on the page with the tip of his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. Other times he'd stare at nothing for hours and only draw in a sudden fury as the afternoon sun left the room. Still other days the paper would still be blank when Rodney left.

Rodney would sit and grade papers -- covering them in a sea of red ink and destroying Ivy League egos with every pen stroke. At first he spent Saturday nights at the nearby creepy Ramada -- more truck-stop, drug-dealing, prostitute-enriched hovel than hotel -- but eventually one of the nurses took pity on him and pointed him to directions on staying at the guest house in the dilapidated village. Some weekends Elizabeth would join them with her own paperwork. Zelenka stopped by once, while he was in the States for a conference, and twice Carson came with pictures and stories of his kids, staying just long enough to express shock and hope about John's "recovery" and make them swear to keep him posted.

Sheppard never really paid attention to who did and didn't visit. Rodney could find no discernable pattern to connect when Sheppard would draw and when he wouldn't. He always drew places -- forests, deserts, mountain ranges, seascapes, sometimes cities -- and the detail grew with each effort. Always, somewhere in the drawing, was a stargate. Sometimes it was front and center, a looming force dominating the drawing. Sometimes you could only barely see it, hidden far away behind the trees. But it was always there and Rodney had to consistently lie to Dr. Thompson about whether he knew what it was.

The last weekend of his sabbatical arrived like any other. The entire East Coast was smashed under the oppressive humid heat of late August, and the air conditioning in Rodney's car could only barely keep it at bay. He spent most of the drive on the phone with Jeannie, actually mostly promising Robby he'd be home for his first day of kindergarten. The McKay stubbornness had certainly not skipped a generation.

He settled John down, this time with colored pencils, and relaxed with the latest issues of _Science_. John was so intent on his drawing that he didn't look up when Elizabeth walked in around lunchtime and collapsed on the bed.

"Next time I think it's a good idea to let them seat me with representatives from both India and Pakistan during an arms-control summit, please shoot me," she murmured, covering her face with John's pillow. "How are you doing, Rodney?"

"Well, it looks like I'm going to have to write a letter to Caltech. Why they publish articles with math this blatantly wrong is beyond me -- they have a peer review process for a reason," Rodney commented, flinging the journal onto the floor. "I'm fine -- mostly packed and ready to head back to Canada where it isn't too hot to move. Robby spent twenty minutes making me promise to walk him to his first day of kindergarten. When did kids start liking me?"

"I honestly couldn't say." Elizabeth lifted the pillow, smiled at him, and looked over to John. "He looks completely engrossed in his latest masterpiece. What do you say we go across the Bay and try to find somewhere with iced coffee? I have jet lag like you wouldn't believe."

"We should get some sandwiches while we're out. Even I don't like the hospital food here. It's no wonder Sheppard got so skinny," Rodney remarked, leading Elizabeth out to his car. He shoved the journal articles covering the passenger seat onto the floor so she could sit and drove across the bridge.

Sandwiches and iced coffee acquired, Rodney tried to head back only to curse as they hit another strangely angled street that dumped them at the water. He finally thought he found the way out when Elizabeth grabbed his arm. "Rodney, look."

All he saw was the same old thing -- a sleepy, tiny Maryland town with random shops and restaurants and piers along the Chesapeake Bay. "What?"

"See that sign." Elizabeth pointed. "They give rides in a seaplane. Do you think John would like to fly again?"

Rodney shook his head. He'd never liked flying and had only grudgingly learned to trust Colonel Sheppard in the puddle jumpers. "Are you kidding? That plane is probably over fifty years old and I don't think this place has a mechanic capable of keeping it flying. We'd crash into the Bay and drown. Trust me, Elizabeth, it's no fun to be trapped underwater in something that's supposed to fly."

"C'mon, Rodney, where's your sense of adventure?"

"I think I left it behind in the Pegasus Galaxy," he told her, finally finding the way out of town. The entire mile across the bridge she refused to let it drop, and by the time they made it back to Sheppard's building he grudgingly agreed, if only to shut her up about it.

They entered the room to find Sheppard exactly as they'd left him -- face close to the nighttime forest scene he was creating. Rodney thought it was the most detailed he'd ever seen Sheppard draw. Elizabeth lay back down on the bed and told Rodney, "Wake me when Picasso finishes."

Sheppard spent most of the day on it. Rodney finished _Science_ and moved onto _Nature_ and then a grant proposal one of the professors had asked him to review. Every so often he'd look up to find Sheppard hard at work, adding details to the tree line and even constellations to the sky. By the time Sheppard finally put the pencils down and resumed his normal blank stare out the window, Elizabeth was up and reading some trashy romance novel she'd brought. Rodney secretly hoped she'd forgotten her planned adventure.

"Look, he's done," she announced, bouncing off the bed and kneeling in front of Sheppard's chair. "Hey, John, do you want to go fly in an airplane?" She took his lack of response as an affirmative and pushed Sheppard's wheelchair down the hall, beckoning Rodney to follow.

The seaplane was every bit as small and shaky as Rodney feared, but at least there didn't appear to be any parts ready to fall off. The pilot was ex-Air Force himself and it took little convincing to get Sheppard into the co-pilot's seat. They bounced three times off the water, and by the time the wings lifted them into the air Rodney's eyes were shut and his hands gripped his armrests so tight his knuckles whitened.

"Rodney, stop being a wimp and look outside. It's beautiful out there," Elizabeth scolded, punching him lightly in the arm. He tentatively cracked an eye open and looked out the window. Green hills lined the Chesapeake Bay and far below he could see sailboats and crab trawlers. The sun was nearing the horizon, setting a diffuse glow on the land far below. Unfortunately this didn't make the cabin feel any larger. He almost convinced himself to relax when the plane bounced slightly before catching an updraft, and he closed his eyes again and began reciting the periodic table under his breath.

"Rodney!" Elizabeth called to him when he reached bismuth.

"Elizabeth, you made me go up in this death trap. I don't care how pretty you think it is outside, I'm not opening my eyes until we are back on the ground," Rodney told her through clenched teeth. Polonium. Astitine.

"No, Rodney." He felt a hand grab his arm. "Look at John."

He sighed exasperatedly and cracked open one eye, opening them both wide when he saw what Elizabeth was excited about. Sheppard sat in front of the windshield, giving the landscape the same blank stare he gave everything these days. But Rodney felt a shiver run up his spine when he saw Sheppard's hands. Sheppard held them out as though he were holding the controls to a puddle jumper, and his movements didn't mimic the pilot's; they paralleled or even preceded them. Rodney watched for the rest of the flight as Sheppard guided them in lazy circles over the water and down to a gentle, splashy landing. When he stole glimpses at Elizabeth he could see her watching just as intently.

The drive back to the hospital was silent but Rodney felt the car buzzing with energy. They wheeled John back into his room and looked at each other as John stared out the window. "Do you think he's actually getting better?" Elizabeth wondered. "Trying to tell us something, remembering?"

"I have no idea. Remember, I'm the kind of doctor that actually does science," Rodney told her. "But you're not getting me back in that plane again, even if Sheppard wakes up and asks to fly it."

Elizabeth pulled her chair in front of Sheppard and gently took his face in her hands, turning it to look at her. "John? Can you hear me?" Just as Rodney expected, there was no response. He watched them for a minute and then shook his head.

"Elizabeth, it's useless. He's gone," he said, but he looked up when he heard her gasp. John's head had turned to look at the landscape he'd drawn earlier that day, still sitting on the table. Elizabeth was staring at it, one hand to her mouth. "What is it?" Rodney asked, walking over to look.

"Rodney…look at the sky, do those stars remind you of anything?" Elizabeth asked, tracing the painted sky with her finger.

Rodney looked hard and then grabbed the paper from the table to examine it more closely. "There's six constellations here! And they're all symbols from Atlantis's gate -- but I don't know the address."

"It has been six years, Rodney, you can't remember every address we visited."

"Maybe." He looked up and snapped his fingers, diving across the room to rummage through the pile of artwork sitting on Sheppard's bedside table. "Look here, the patterns in the waves on this one -- it's the same six symbols!"

In an instant Elizabeth was breathing over his shoulder as they stared at the two drawings. The nurse who entered the room had to cough three times to get their attention. "Excuse me, but you're going to have to leave now. We can't have visitors overnight."

"No, it's okay," Rodney said, waving a dismissive hand at the nurse without looking up. "He won't mind if we stay."

"I'm sorry," the nurse said, stepping into the room. "But I have to insist. The patients need their rest and the night staff can't worry about visitors running around."

"Fine, fine," Rodney said, grabbing the entire pile of drawings and examining a crayon sketch of a prairie as they walked out. He stopped at the car. "There it is, see," he told Elizabeth, tracing lines in the weaving of the grass, "here, here, here, here, here, and here -- the same six symbols."

They pushed into the guest house and Rodney turned the air conditioner in the dining room on full blast while Elizabeth spread the papers on the living room floor. Two hours later they'd examined each piece Sheppard had drawn over the past eight months and everywhere found the same six gate symbols. They were hidden among the leaves of the trees, the sand on a beach, or within the crags of a mountain.

Elizabeth leaned back on the couch, rubbing her eyes. "Okay, Dr. McKay, you're the genius, what now?"

Rodney looked up, wishing desperately for coffee and weather that wasn't too hot to make him wince at the thought of drinking it. "We find out where it is and go there. One last mission for old times' sake."

"How do you suggest we do that?" Elizabeth asked. "Aside from the little consulting I've done, neither of us has worked for SGC for years. And I don't think they're overly eager to return to Pegasus."

Rodney just looked at her until she sighed and pulled out her cell phone. They pulled every string they had, and a few they didn't. They called people high up in SGC command and at the bottom rungs of SGC's science division. They called some senators Elizabeth knew and a few she'd never met. Rodney even called General Carter. It took begging and cajoling, promises and threats, and a few well-placed bribes, but one week later they checked Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard out of the hospital, parked the car at Elizabeth's townhouse and waited for Colonel Lorne to beam them up to the _Perseus_ \-- SGC's newest vessel. Beckett and Zelenka were waiting for them when they materialized in the infirmary.


	8. Chapter 8

Elizabeth wasn't remotely surprised to find Teyla and Ronon standing at the puddle jumper door when it opened. After all, the HUD had indicated life signs. She was, however, a bit surprised to see Teyla obviously pregnant with a small girl clinging to her leg and a slightly older boy standing next to Ronon.

"Teyla, it's so good to see you." Elizabeth took the Athosian woman's hands and bowed her head to meet Teyla's forehead. "It looks like life without the Wraith has treated you well," Elizabeth said, smiling at the children.

"Dr. Weir, it is an honor to finally see you again," Teyla responded. "My people have grown much without the threat of Wraith cullings. This is Dayna." Teyla placed her hand on the girl's head and reached for the young boy. " And this is John. Dayna, John, say hello to our old friends -- these are doctors Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay, Carson Beckett, and Radek Zelenka." The little girl peeked out from behind Teyla's legs and stared at them while the boy stepped forward and inclined his head.

"Teyla, they're beautiful," said Carson, kneeling down to smile at Dayna. "You have your mother's eyes, little one."

Elizabeth heard Rodney sigh heavily behind her. "Not more proud parents. As though Carson wasn't enough talking about his little monsters the entire ride over here."

Teyla raised an eyebrow at Carson, "Dr. Beckett, you have children now?"

"Oh, yes, two in fact." Carson nodded, grinning broadly. "Michael is three and Johanna is still a wee little babe. Would you like to see pictures?"

Elizabeth could practically hear Rodney roll his eyes behind her. While Teyla oohed appreciatively over Carson's photos Ronon approached the others. "You didn't come all this way to share baby stories," he said. "What's going on?"

"Yes," Teyla said, looking up from the pile of photos Carson had shoved into her hands. "What has brought you here? How is Colonel Sheppard?" A shadow crossed Teyla's face as she saw Elizabeth exchange a look with Rodney. "He is why you are here? Is he…?"

"It's a long story," Elizabeth said. "Is there somewhere we can talk? Perhaps over tea?"

The new Athosian settlement was much more permanent than the hunting camps they had left behind on Athos. Teyla led them to a stone house with a warm interior, seating them around a long wooden table after shooing the children to play outside. Elizabeth turned to Ronon as Teyla heated water. "So Teyla managed to get you to settle down? I have to say I'm a bit surprised."

Ronon shrugged. "There aren't any more Wraith to kill."

"So, what," Rodney asked him, "you just packed up your weapons and became domesticated?"

Ronon shot McKay a toothy grin. "Someone has to teach the kids to hunt."

"Ah, right then." Rodney looked at Elizabeth. "As much as I'm sure we'd all like to sit and play catch-up, we didn't come this far for tea. Can we get down to business?"

Elizabeth nodded and looked at Teyla and Ronon. "John woke up when we got back to Earth but he never really got better. He was just an empty shell never talking or really doing anything. Carson tried…"

Rodney interrupted her. "Elizabeth, they don't need the gory details. John started drawing pictures for some crazy new psychobabble therapy."

"Actually, art therapy is a mature, respected technique," Carson shot in, earning a patented McKay glare.

"As I was saying, Sheppard developed quite the fondness for finger paints and he kept drawing pictures with stargates in them. Elizabeth and I realized he'd been hiding gate addresses in the drawings -- actually one specific Pegasus address over and over," Rodney continued.

Elizabeth pulled out the paper on which they'd drawn the six symbols. "Do either of you recognize this address?" She passed the paper to Ronon. Teyla placed a hand on Ronon's shoulder, looking over his head at the writing.

"It is unfamiliar to me," Teyla said as Ronon shook his head. "You intend to go there?"

"Of course," Rodney said, just as Elizabeth said, "We need to check if it's safe first. We don't want to walk into another Asuran trap."

Rodney turned on her, "C'mon Elizabeth, what's the worst that can happen? John doesn't get better? We get killed? The Asurans are more advanced than we are and they know everything we know -- remember the mind probes?" Rodney winced and gulped down the tea in front of him.

"Rodney is right," Zelenka pointed out. "They are capable of destroying Earth if they choose and there is nothing we know they do not.. We would only risk ourselves."

"Wait a minute," Carson stammered. "No one said anything about dying when they asked me to come on this trip."

"Carson, I believe your exact words when we called you were 'when do we leave?'" Rodney pointed out.

"You still never mentioned the dying part!"

"We'll just have to be careful then," Elizabeth said, patting Carson's hand.

"Then we should go. There is no time like the present. I will ask Halling to watch the children," Teyla said, slipping into her coat and exiting the house. Elizabeth marveled at the quick decision. It had been so long since she'd dealt with members of the Pegasus Galaxy, where the threat of the Wraith had made every moment precious. Sometimes, over long negotiations on Earth, she almost missed it -- even when it came with Genii intrigue.

Within minutes they had reassembled at the puddle jumper. "It's been a while," Rodney commented, holding up the tac vest and handgun holster. "I'm not sure I remember how to put these on." Elizabeth shrugged into her own vest, feeling it slip on like a second skin. She knew if it was that easy for her, Rodney would have no problem. Soon enough they were cloaked and heading through the gate.

Carson piloted them over the planet, skimming just above the tree line while Rodney examined the HUD. "This planet looks completely uninhabited. I'm not seeing anything bigger than a dog," he commented as the trees skipped by below.

"I'm picking up an energy reading," Zelenka said, staring at the computer by his seat before going to stand behind Rodney's chair. "Right here." He pointed to the map on the screen.

Rodney squinted and irritably shoved Zelenka's finger out of the way. "That's dense vegetation. Carson, can you put us down near it?"

"We're following a mysterious signal for what could be a trap on an alien planet and you want to explore it on foot?" Carson asked.

Rodney sighed exasperatedly. "I thought it was my job to be the pessimist. Carson -- it's the only interesting thing on the planet. I doubt Sheppard was writing this address everywhere because he liked squirrels. We need to take a closer look if we're going to learn anything, and even Sheppard couldn't land in those trees."

The smell of pine trees swept through the open door of the puddle jumper and Elizabeth felt pine needles cracking underfoot as she stepped out. When a small animal -- some cross between a badger and a beagle -- ran across their path, Elizabeth jumped, but not as high as Carson. Rodney and Zelenka conferred with each other, and Elizabeth could see Rodney elaborating some idea with his hands before pointing them uphill. She couldn't help smiling when she heard Teyla whisper to Ronon, "I think I have missed this."

They walked through the forest, leaving trails in the mist swirling around the trees. "Should be just over this way," Rodney murmured, stepping ahead to lead the little expedition.

Ronon and Teyla's guns were raised, followed quickly by McKay's, Beckett's, and then Zelenka's before Elizabeth even realized where they were aiming. The mist swirled again as Niam stepped out from the trees, and Elizabeth felt a cold chill. The Asuran calmly raised his hands and surveyed the ragtag group. "It appears you got the message."

Elizabeth heard Ronon's gun power up and swore she could hear Rodney stiffen before he snapped at the Asuran, "What do you want from us? Haven't you done enough?"

"That is why I am here," Niam said, taking a step toward them but stopping when the sounds of five safeties clicking off echoed through the trees. "You know those weapons cannot harm me." He stopped moving anyway.

"I seem to remember the lowest setting on mine affecting your kind," Ronon growled. Elizabeth could hear him thumb up the power level to its highest setting. "Why shouldn't I see what maxing it out would do?"

"Because I can help your friend," Niam said simply.

Rodney laughed harshly. "Right. Because you guys are really in the business of helping people."

Elizabeth put a hand on Rodney's arm. "Rodney, we may as well listen to what he has to say." She could feel him struggle but slowly his muscles loosened under her fingers. She nodded to Niam. "Tell us."

Niam surveyed the group. "Not all of us agreed that our method of destroying the Wraith was the best course of action. However, we were overpowered by a majority that wanted to be done with that driving imperative in our base code. There was hope that with the Wraith destroyed as well as all remnants of our creators, the aggression and revenge which controlled us would be released -- that we would finally be able to determine our own destiny and be free from the arm of our creators."

"So you decided to attack us," Rodney spat. "Great way to become less aggressive."

"Did you not do something similar when you destroyed our ship? Choose your people over mine?" Niam asked, cocking his head to the side. "At least we let you leave the city before we destroyed it."

"Why don't you ask Sheppard what he thought of your plan?" Rodney pointed out. "Oh, that's right, you can't!"

"When we first met we saw within your Colonel Sheppard a willingness to sacrifice himself in order to win a battle -- to save his people. Were we wrong?" Niam asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, you were not. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't rather live."

"Yet we did not kill him."

Carson looked up. "You may as well have. I wouldn't call what he's doing living."

"Which is why, as I said, I called you to this place. After the Wraith and Atlantis were destroyed, we returned to Asuras but found little had changed. With nowhere else to direct our aggression and nothing to drive our continued growth, our society fell apart. Many languished into nothingness while others were overcome with aggression, turning on their own kind. Within a few years our population had dwindled and our city began falling into disrepair," Niam explained. "A few of us managed to recover Dr. McKay's rewrite of our base code to remove aggression and escaped before some of the worst destroyed the planet."

Rodney turned to Elizabeth. "See, I'm not the only one who destroys planets."

Elizabeth waved a hand at Rodney and looked back at Niam. "You'll forgive us if we don't mourn the destruction of your world. But you still haven't told us what you plan to do now."

Niam nodded. "Those of us who escaped have been preparing for Ascension but, while we are close, it is still just beyond our reach. We hope that by fixing our previous wrongs we can achieve that last step. Atlantis is destroyed, but it was only a city." Rodney coughed loudly at the comment but Niam ignored him. "However, we think we can repair the damage to your friend."

"If you don't mind my asking, how do you intend to do that?" Dr. Beckett asked.

"I can reverse the damage the same way it was created," Niam said simply.

"Infect him with more nanites? I don't think so," Rodney said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Elizabeth looked to Rodney. "Let's not rule it out just yet." She turned to Niam. "How did you send the message for us to come here? And, more importantly, why should we trust you?"

"As I said, I was never comfortable with our final solution. I wrote a subroutine into the nanites which infected Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard to enable me to contact him should I one day be able to cure him. As for trusting me, I seem to recall it was you who broke our trust the last time. I have never gone against my word to you," Niam pointed out.

"He is right," Teyla said. "Even after he learned we had crossed him, he still helped us blow up their version of Atlantis."

Elizabeth surveyed her team. Ronon had never moved his finger from the trigger but the others had all lowered their weapons. Rodney's arms were still stubbornly folded, but she could see hope on Carson's and Zelenka's faces and Teyla appeared to be considering. She turned back to Niam. "We will need to consider and discuss your offer. Meet us here tomorrow." He nodded and faded back into the trees. Rodney watched for energy signals the entire way back to the gate.

That night Teyla and Ronon's table hosted a rather heated discussion. Rodney wanted no part in this, convinced it was only a new trick, but the others were less sure.

"I don't see what we can lose that isn't already lost," Carson pointed out. "Colonel Sheppard isn't going to get better and I don't know that he will live much longer."

"What if Niam is lying? What if this is just a ploy to infect Earth?" Rodney argued. "Finish what they started."

"Lorne took the _Perseus_ to Asuras and saw the devastation Niam described," Elizabeth said. "Plus, didn't you point out earlier they could destroy Earth without our help if they chose? What did you expect when you came here?"

"I didn't think they'd want to re-infect him," Rodney said stubbornly. "Wasn't the first time bad enough?"

"Dr. McKay, would not Colonel Sheppard want us to take the risk?" Teyla asked him, her head on Ronon's shoulder. Elizabeth could see Rodney sag a bit and knew they were winning him over.

"There must be ways to keep things safe," Dr. Zelenka murmured into his tea. "We should hide the _Perseus_ from them -- perhaps set up small camp on the planet until Dr. Beckett can be sure Sheppard is not a risk."

"I agree." Elizabeth surveyed the table. Teyla looked drowsy, leaning on Ronon's shoulder while he cleaned the disassembled weapon on the table in front of him. Carson leaned back in his chair looking thoughtfully across the room, and Dr. Zelenka next to him seemed about to nod off into his mug. Rodney still looked unsure but she knew he would yield. "Let's return to the _Perseus_ for the night. Teyla, Ronon, we'll return with supplies and Colonel Sheppard in the morning."


	9. Chapter 9

At first he only heard voices, swirling around him, familiar and yet unrecognizably disembodied as they faded in and out.

"..really necessary? Is he strong enough to actually escape?"

"He was super-strong last time."

"Have you noticed anything different?"

"Not yet, love."

"How long do we have to wait?"

"Rodney, after all these years you can't expect a miracle overnight."

"I don't see why not."

Slowly he grew aware of his own body -- legs and arms and a quiet thumping within his chest. He willed his eyes to open, his arm to rise, his torso to sit up, but he couldn't remember how. As it all swam away he felt the pressure of someone squeezing his hand and tried to squeeze back.

"I swear he squeezed my hand."

"The monitors don't indicate any change in heart rate or neural activity. It was probably just a muscle spasm."

"I don't think so."

Eventually there was light -- bright white crossed with dark lines -- when he managed to crack his eyelids open. Blurry shapes swam over his head and he blinked but they refused to focus. "John?" a female voice asked, and he felt a hand squeezing his own. This time he was sure he managed to squeeze back before it all faded out.

When the light returned the overhead ceiling was focused -- white canvas over metal bars -- and his brain supplied the term "semi-permanent field shelter" as the man standing over him grinned and shouted something out the door. Within moments six heads surrounded his field of vision, smiling and talking over each other. He blinked a few times, experimentally, but they didn't go away. Whoever they were, they seemed happy to see him, and he appeared to have a woman on each hand, which seemed like a good thing. Though one looked pregnant, which worried him a bit. He hoped that wasn't going to get him in trouble. Also the balding guy looked rather jumpy.

It slammed into him an hour later as he hovered in that semi-conscious state between dreaming and alertness. He had been flying -- his Cessna morphed into a Nighthawk, into an Apache, and then finally a small spaceship his brain called a puddle jumper. He walked over the sands of Afghanistan, the snow of Antarctica, the balconies of Atlantis. Teyla taught him stick fighting and he gasped as the sticks smacked his ribs. Kolya dragged Elizabeth to the gate, gun to her head. He slammed an epi-pen into the thigh of a gasping McKay while more alien bees circled them.

Faster and faster, like a slide projector high on Wraith enzyme, memories slammed into him from whatever dam had blown within his head. He thrashed on the floor of Elizabeth's office. Zelenka shouted. He fired a stun gun. The Wraith Queen screamed in his face. And, oh god! He destroyed Atlantis!

John opened his eyes wide and tried to sit up only to be thrown back by whatever was holding him to the bed. He thrashed wildly against the restraints, shouting something without words -- he wouldn't let the Asurans use him any longer. Someone ran over, trying to push him down, talking calmly, and John only stopped struggling when he recognized the face.

"Colonel Sheppard!" Dr. Beckett said and his eyes narrowed a bit. "Is it you?"

John's throat was scratchy and his voice sounded stale in his ears. "Of course it's me. Were you expecting someone else? Where are we?" He squinted again at Carson's head -- the doctor's hair was peppered with grey. "Carson, what happened to your hair? The Wraith didn't…"

Carson looked confused a minute, reaching up to touch the top of his head. A look of horrified comprehension dawned on his face and he gently touched John's arm. "John, what's the last thing you remember?"

John shook his head -- his memory still felt cobwebbed. "Rodney left Atlantis to see Jeannie. I got caught sleep-walking and you kept running tests on me. Then…" he shook his head. He'd been sure of something a minute ago but it was gone again. "I didn't turn into a bug again, did I?"

"No, lad, I'm afraid it was worse than that," Carson said quietly. John wasn't quite sure he wanted to ask what could be worse. Luckily he was temporarily spared by the herd of people who burst into the tent. Rodney was talking a mile a minute, hands flailing while Zelenka smiled behind him. Ronon gave John the biggest bear hug possible for someone tied to a bed, Elizabeth just grabbed his hand and smiled, and Teyla stood beside him, hand on a pregnant stomach.

"Carson?" John asked, lifting a hand experimentally against the restraints. "Are these necessary?" He saw Carson exchange a look with Elizabeth and Rodney. "I promise I don't feel like attacking any of you."

Carson sighed and reached down to undo the restraints. John sat up, slowly. It was much more difficult than it should have been and he was grateful when Elizabeth propped him up with pillows. He looked at the faces ringing his bedside. "Um, this is a little weird. You all look different and I feel different and I have no idea where we are or how we got here. And Teyla, I'd offer to beat the crap out of whoever did that to you but I know you'd do a far better job at it than I would."

"You are probably right, Colonel Sheppard." Teyla gave him a long-suffering smile. "Also, since I doubt your skills have improved, you would have a great deal of trouble besting Ronon. We have been wed for several years now."

"Really?" John felt his eyebrows shoot somewhere near his hairline. "Congratulations. But…several years? How, when…someone's going to need to start explaining fast. McKay?" He focused on the astrophysicist. He could always count on Rodney to explain something and talk fast while doing it.

Rodney shifted awkwardly and coughed before looking at Carson, who looked at Elizabeth, who looked back at Rodney. John knew this was going to be interesting. He was right. By the time Rodney had finished the story -- with frequent interruptions from everyone else in the tent -- all John could do was stare at them. "You're sure I haven't ended up in some alternate universe?"

"Pretty sure, John," Elizabeth said, smiling at him. "I know all this is going to take some time to process."

"Uh-huh," John said distractedly, looking around the room at all his friends who looked so different and yet so obviously like themselves. "Does anyone have a mirror?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Right. We bring you back from over six years of imitating an eggplant and the first thing you ask for is a mirror. This planet doesn't have any priestesses for you to seduce, you know."

"Rodney, you just told me that I was fed on by a Wraith, helped destroy Atlantis, and then lay in something like a " -- John looked at Carson -- "coma for over six years. It's a lot to take in and I don't think it's too much to ask to want to check that I'm still --" He looked at the small mirror Carson handed him and stopped talking. There had been no mirrors in Kolya's cell, but he imagined he had looked like this after the Wraith feedings. He was definitely old -- greyed hair, sagging skin, gaunt face -- something that didn't surprise him after seeing how bony his arms and legs were. " -- me," he finished quietly. "Does one of you have a razor I can borrow?" he asked, rubbing his hands through the beard -- grey streaked with black -- that covered his chin. He never could get used to having facial hair.

Carson gave him a pair of scissors and a razor and he managed to convince everyone to leave him alone in the tent. As they left he heard Teyla whisper to Elizabeth, "He seems to be taking it quite well." He shook his head and looked in the mirror again, prodding at the skin sagging at his eyes and the corner of his mouth, brushing his hands through the grey hair surrounding his face. It all felt a little too unreal, too weird to actually be happening. Somewhere inside he knew he was starting to freak out, but most of him hadn't yet processed Rodney's story.

John's hands shook more than he liked as he first trimmed and then shaved off the beard, wincing at the several nicks he acquired along the way. When he was done he could only stare at the hollowed cheekbones the beard had covered up. Shivering, he took one last look at the mirror before grabbing the jacket Elizabeth had left on his bed and stepping outside. He couldn't remember his legs ever feeling so unsteady.

Ronon was seated outside the tent, sharpening a knife. "You still carry an arsenal of those?" John asked, sitting next to Ronon and wincing as his hips creaked.

"Not as many as before," Ronon said, handing John a knife and sharpening stone.

John concentrated on the task. The familiar rhythm of the blade rubbing against the rough surface was comforting. "So, you and Teyla?"

"Yep," Ronon said, leaning back and smiling slightly. "I had nowhere to go. None of her people fully understood why she remained on Atlantis. This galaxy needed children. It made sense."

"So the Wraith are really gone?" John asked.

"We found a few planets where ships had crashed with hundreds of dead Wraith inside," Ronon told him. "No one we've found has seen or heard of Wraith since Atlantis was destroyed."

"That's good then," John said. Ronon nodded assent and continued sharpening his knives in silence. John found the quiet familiarity remarkably grounding as he focused on the blade before him.

"Colonel Sheppard?" John looked up to see Carson approaching. "Would you mind if I ran a few tests? I need to make sure whatever Niam did to cure you didn't leave behind any travelers." John nodded and held a hand out for Carson to help him up.

"So, how're you feeling, lad?" Carson asked as he ran a scanner slowly down the side of John's head. "I imagine this is all a wee bit disconcerting."

"You could say that," John admitted. "I feel like I should be more freaked out, but I don't remember any of it except…" John shook his head, and looked at Carson.

"What is it?"

"You know that feeling when you wake up and know you had a crazy dream and you can almost remember it but the harder you think, the more it slips away?" Carson nodded and John continued. "It feels a little like that."

Dr. Beckett examined the readings and looked back at John. "It looks like Niam was good for his word. I don't see any of the little buggers and you look as good as new, relatively speaking. Now, I don't have to tell you that you're very weak right now. Don't overtax yourself. It'll be a while to build yourself up after so many years of inactivity."

"Right, Doc," John said, sliding off the bed. "You said Niam cured me because he thought it was the last step to his ascension?"

"It's what he claimed." Carson shrugged. "But he just stuck his hand in your head for a few minutes, said 'it is done,' and walked away. Rodney was convinced he'd tricked us. Bloody strangest piece of medicine I've ever seen."

"I bet." John leaned back against the bed, crossing his arms. "So, these nanites he cured me with were on their way to ascending then."

"I wouldn't worry about that." Carson placed a hand on John's shoulder and smiled. "You feel flesh and bone to me, son."

John nodded and headed for the door, stopping at the entrance to look back. "Carson, thanks for…"

Carson shook his head. "You don't have anything to thank me for. I was just doing my job. Now go on back out there. We've been waiting a long time to get you back."

John fell asleep to McKay and Zelenka arguing about Fermat's Last Theorem and woke to find a small boy sitting next to him, sharpening a knife on a whetstone. "Hey there. Not planning to use that on me, are you?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows and smiling at the kid.

The boy looked at him with big, dark eyes. "Should I be?" John couldn't help chuckling. There was no doubt this kid had to be Ronon's, which meant, he remembered, he was also Teyla's. That was going to take some getting used to.

"I hope not," John commented, sitting up and reaching to grab the shoes he vaguely remembered Rodney removing. He almost gave up on the laces. His fingers weren't as nimble as they used to be. "What do you say we go for a walk?

The boy cocked his head. "Are we allowed?"

"I don't see why not. I haven't gotten to walk outside in six years and I think I miss it," John told him, easing himself up. There was a long minute when he wasn't sure his legs would hold him. "Come here," he beckoned to the boy, putting an arm and the tiniest bit of weight on his thin shoulder.

"So, what's your name?" John asked as they entered the surrounding trees.

"John," the boy said, squinting up to look at Sheppard. "Mom said I was named after you. She said you were a brave warrior who cared deeply about your friends. She also said you were stubborn and sometimes foolish. Dad said you were a pretty good fighter."

"Did they now?" John chuckled. "You know, John, that's a pretty big name to live up to. They won't want you to be king of England, but there's been lots of famous Johns. John Lennon, Johnny Cash, John Glenn, John Elway, John Wayne, John F. Kennedy." The kid was looking at him like he wasn't sure about the sanity of the big person next to him. "It's okay, I'm sure you can live up to it."

"The other kids think it's weird," John muttered. "But Jinto stops them whenever they tease me too much."

"That's good of him," John said distractedly. This was weird -- waking up to find six years had passed, that he'd helped destroy his home and hurt his friends and they were all older and he was much older. And he was walking through the woods with Teyla and Ronon's _son_ who also happened to be named after him. "You know, it's going to be confusing both of us having the same name. Since I was John first, what do you say we think of a nickname for you?"

"What is a nickname?" John asked him.

"It's a name people use for other people, usually based on their real name. Like, Rodney always wanted people to call him Rod," John explained. "Let's see, when I was little my mom used to call me Johno. What do you think of that?"

"Johno," the kid sounded the name out in his mouth and smiled. "I like it."

They hadn't even gone a mile and John was starting to feel ready to fall over. "I think we should head back."

Johno looked up at him. "Already?"

John nodded and turned to go back, falling to the ground instead. "Actually, I think I'm going to just sit here a bit. Can you go back and get someone?" Johno looked at him with frightened eyes and nodded before running off. John leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes, ignoring the rough back pressing into his back and the dampness of the ground beneath him. He still felt disconnected with his body -- like it would be all too easy to float off.

"What did you think you were doing walking around the woods alone like that?" Not without effort, John cracked open an eye to see Rodney standing over him. "We didn't bring you all the way here so you could die wandering in the woods."

"I wasn't alone. I was walking with Johno," John muttered at Rodney, leaning his head back against the tree to see the scientist puffed up like a mother hen.

"Johno? Who's Johno? Oh," Rodney said as Johno pushed in underneath his arm.

"I found him first," the kid explained to John, shooting him a five-year-old's version of a sympathetic look.

"And it's a good thing, too!" Rodney exclaimed. "We were going crazy looking for you. Elizabeth was worried."

"Geez, McKay, in six years you weren't able to yell me awake?" John muttered.

Rodney stared at his hands. "I didn't actually see you all that much."

"You didn't?" John looked up, shielding his eyes. "Why not?"

"Well, I was in Canada and you weren't. And it's not like you were much of a conversationalist," Rodney snapped at him.

"So you can travel between galaxies but a different part of North America is too far away?" John asked. He could see Rodney turning red and realized this fight just wasn't worth having so he extended a hand instead. "Help me up."

Rodney pulled him up handily -- he must really weigh nothing. Which was good because he had to lean nearly all of his weight on Rodney to get back to camp. When they got close enough, Ronon found them, wordlessly picked John up, and carried him the rest of the way. It was weird that he didn't bother thinking to protest.

The camp was partly disassembled when they entered the clearing. Elizabeth looked at him and came over, raising an eyebrow at Rodney as Ronon set John back onto the ground. John was glad he managed to stay standing.

"I thought Dr. Beckett told you to take it easy," she scolded.

"I was," John told her. "I guess I need to rewrite my definition of easy." He looked up at Carson's shout when Zelenka let a tent collapse with him inside. "What's going on here?"

"Carson is convinced you are clean of nanites, so we're going to stay with the Athosians for a while. Lorne is taking the _Perseus_ on some business in the Pegasus Galaxy SGC wanted him to attend to," Elizabeth told him. "We're almost done. Why don't you sit while we finish."

Stepping through the gate was everything John remembered, and soon Teyla and Ronon were showing him New Athos. John whistled when he saw the Athosian settlement. "Your people have done well, Teyla."

"Yes, they have," Teyla said, looking over the village with obvious pride on her face. "Without the threat of Wraith attack we can build permanent settlements. Solid walls are useful in winter."

"I bet," John said. He grinned at the approaching crowd. "Hey there!"

He almost didn't recognize Jinto -- the boy had taken after his father and shot up taller than John -- but he bowed his head to meet John's forehead. "It is good to see you well, Colonel Sheppard," he said. "Perhaps while you are visiting, you could teach us your football again? I have forgotten some of the rules."

"I'd love to, Jinto," John told him before following Teyla and Ronon to their home at the edge of town. They set up some of the tents next to the small house, but Teyla and Ronon insisted John stay in the comfort of their extra bed. It was comfortable, but John found over the next several days that, while he couldn't seem to stay alert for long, after a few hours of sleep he'd wake bathed in swear, taking long minutes to calm down and come back to himself. The others either didn't notice or didn't mention it and John thought it wasn't worth bothering Carson over.

Several nights later he again restlessly rose sometime after midnight to find Teyla boiling water over the stove. "Wasn't expecting to find you up," he commented, sitting in one of the chairs.

"The baby was restless," Teyla said, smiling as she laid a hand on her swollen belly. "It is hard to sleep with someone kicking you from the inside, and I am hoping tea may be calming. What about you? Should you not be resting?"

"I was asleep so long, I can't seem to sleep more than a few hours at a time now." John shrugged. "I think I'm not sure I'll wake up again." He rubbed a finger along the table top, tracing the patterns in the wood grain.

Teyla sat across from him, laying two mugs between them. "What will you do when you get back to Earth?"

"I don't know," John said, wrapping his hands around the warm mug. "There isn't really anything for me there. The Air Force won't want me any more, and after Atlantis I don't think I could go back to it anyway. Honestly, the longer we stayed in Atlantis, the more convinced I was I'd be there until I died. Now," he shrugged his shoulders and sipped at the mug, smiling at the familiar taste of the Athosian nighttime tea.

"You know you would always be welcome here," Teyla pointed out, reaching across to take one of John's hands. "There are many among my people who have been proud to call you friend."

John opened his mouth to politely refuse but then thought better. What good reason did he really have to not stay? Rodney, Elizabeth, Carson, everyone he knew had their own lives now and it had been a long time since John Sheppard played an active role in them. He looked at Teyla's face and knew he wouldn't mind living out his days here. "You know what, I'll think about it."

Teyla nodded and leaned back, quietly sipping her tea. John relaxed into his own chair, appreciating the quiet. It was a huge contrast to the first cup of tea he'd shared with Teyla -- nervously sipping the stout morning tea while looking for sanctuary before their newly found city succumbed to the pressure of the ocean. Before he'd learned of the Wraith and shot his commanding officer.

"I never imagined you settling down like this," John commented. "Back on Atlantis, even Rodney could barely stomach your tuttleroot soup."

Teyla laughed quietly. "My tuttleroot soup is still not up to Charin's standards, but it has improved. Truthfully, I never expected this either, but with the Wraith no longer a threat, it was possible."

"Well, you both seem happy," John said around the lump in his throat.

"I am." Teyla smiled at him. "And I believe Ronon is too."

John nodded and focused on finishing the tea without his hand shaking too much. Eventually Teyla went back to bed, leaving John to stare at the fire burning low in the stove. He was slumped asleep on the table when he was woken by morning light and giggling from outside.

Out the door he found Johno and his sister sitting with bowls of colored goo, drawing on the nearby rocks and rather liberally on each other. Johno grinned when he saw John and motioned him to join them, while his sister just looked up with big eyes. John sat down between them and looked at the colored liquid. "What do you guys have here?"

"Paint!" Johno told him while reaching a green finger to draw a stripe down John's nose, making his sister giggle. John made himself go cross-eyed, pretending to try to look at the stripe, causing Dayna to fall over in laughter.

"Two can play that game, you know," John warned, reaching for the brown-filled tub. It quickly deteriorated into a giggle-filled paint fight and by the time they were done John was pretty sure they looked like Zelenka had on his late return from M7G-677. "Oof," he breathed out. "Now what are you supposed to be doing with these paints?"

Dayna glanced at her brother and quietly pointed to the rocks they had been drawing on. John looked at her thoughtfully and reached out to color in the one clean spot on her nose, earning himself another giggle. "Let's see now," he said, thoughtfully examining the rock and the scribbles already on it. "What should I draw?"

Johno looked at him. "Mom says you used to talk a lot about…hecilopers?" he asked. "Could you draw one of those?"

"Hecilopers? Hecilopers? Oh! You mean, helicopters," John said. "Sure, I can try that. It's too bad there isn't one here or I'd fly you guys around. It's very cool."

Dayna looked up at him, eyes wide as platters. "You can fly?" she asked.

"You bet." John grinned, reaching for the paint and sketching something that looked like a helicopter if you squinted just right. "See, you sit in here and there's a window to keep the bugs out of your face," he explained, pointing to parts of the drawing. "This top bit spins really, really fast -- fast enough to lift you off the ground -- and this one here at the end, the tail rotor, helps you steer so you don't spin out of control. If the Taliban shoots that out, you're in trouble," he told them, remembering the rescue mission in Afghanistan. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected disobeying a direct order would land him in another galaxy.

"Are the Taliban like the Wraith?" Johno asked him. "Mom and Dad told us a little about the Wraith. They sound scary."

"No, the Taliban are just people," John explained. "But you're right, the Wraith were scary. Luckily we had a lot of brave people, like your mom and dad, who could fight them. Now, why don't you guys draw me something?"

John sat back and watched them turn the rocks into a crazy canvas of shapes and colors. Radek and Rodney came out of the tent, arguing whether some problem was np-complete as they entered Teyla and Ronon's house, most likely scavenging for anything coffee-like. A few minutes later Elizabeth emerged and came to sit next to John. "Those two were up half the night," she said, stifling a yawn. "I don't know how Carson slept through it."

"He grew up with a lot of brothers, right?" John asked. "He's probably used to it."

"I suppose," Elizabeth said. "Looks like you've made yourself some new friends."

"Yeah, they're pretty good kids," John told her. After a minute of twirling his fingers in the grass he looked back at Elizabeth. "Teyla asked me to stay with the Athosians, settle in here."

Uncertainty, maybe disappointment, crossed Elizabeth's face but it quickly faded into her normal diplomatic, bland expression. "Are you going to?"

"I'm thinking about it," John said, absentmindedly reaching out to dip a finger into the pot of light blue paint. It was cold on his finger with an underlying, tingly familiarity. Without thinking, he reached out and drew a circle on the rock in front of him, adding triangles around the edges. On the eighth chevron he realized what he was doing and pulled his hand back as though burned. He stared at the drawing a moment longer and then scrambled backwards as images rocketed through his head.

"John?" Elizabeth asked. "Are you okay? John?"

John didn't look up, concentrating on wiping all the paint off his fingers. When Elizabeth grabbed his arm the thigh of his pants was covered with stripes of blue and he could feel his whole body shaking. "Ssh, ssh, it's okay," she murmured, rubbing a hand up and down John's arm. When his only response was to pull his arm away to huddle in on himself, she shouted behind her, "Carson!"

John sat with his head in his hands, the weight of Elizabeth's arm across his shoulders the only thing holding him to the ground. The memories came back to him, like images from a dream only much too real. He remembered the nanites surging inside him, the cold, methodical way they'd controlled him, the Wraith Queen's screams. He remembered losing the battle and the ensuing darkness. He remembered being trapped in a cage of his own body for so many years, unable to speak or move. There was a window that overlooked grey waters and countless sponge baths from pretty nurses whose shirts he looked down as they scrubbed his hair, giggling at the erections he couldn't control. And there was the urge to paint, the gate address burned into his brain.

"Colonel Sheppard?" someone shouted to him, then shouted again, "John! Talk to me."

He shook his head and looked up into Elizabeth's frightened face. "I remember" was all he said before he got up and walked away. He needed to make sense of it all. That didn't stop Elizabeth from following him. They walked in silence for several minutes.

"Rodney didn't visit me for a long time," he said, not looking at her as they continued walking among the trees.

"No, he didn't," she said with a sigh. "At first, he was angry at himself and us for what happened but really, I think he was terrified of you. Rodney relies so much on his brain, you can imagine how scary your condition would be for him."

"It's not like he could have caught it from me," John said, sounding more petulant than he meant to.

"True," Elizabeth said. "So you really remember? Does that mean you were aware the whole time? Because sometimes, when I visited, I thought you knew me."

John shook his head, frustrated. "It's not clear -- like remembering lots of images from a dream but not being able to piece them together. I don't know if I was aware then or if I'm just remembering."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said. John looked at her in surprise, wondering what she had to be sorry for. "I'm sorry we let it happen, and I'm sorry it took so long to help you."

"Are you kidding?" John asked. "Look at all the times I should have died taking out a few Wraith hive ships. What happened was a small price to pay for completely getting rid of them. It's not like I expected to live forever. And you can't honestly think it was your fault." Even as he said it, he knew the truth. He knew how many people's deaths he atoned for that weren't technically his fault. And Elizabeth had even more responsibility on Atlantis than he did.

"Look, you guys brought me back. You never gave up on me," John told her, taking her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. "No regrets on the past, all right?" She looked at him and nodded. Walking back he felt something uncoiling inside him and he stumbled when it released. Elizabeth reached a hand out but he waved her off, smiling slightly. He didn't want her to worry about him anymore.

The next few weeks passed slow and lazy. None of the others seemed rushed to return to their lives, though Carson did complain a few times about missing his family. John had no life to return to. His strength slowly returned with increasingly longer walks and he re-taught the Athosians football, occasionally jumping in from the sidelines for a few plays. Often he'd sit back in the sun and listen to Rodney and Radek bicker about physics or he'd play games of chess with Elizabeth, even though she always won. Ronon even went easy on him when he asked to try sparring again. If there was one thing life had taught him, it was to enjoy quiet when it came because it never seemed to last.

The afternoon before the _Perseus_ was due to return John sat with Ronon and watched Zelenka massacre Carson over a chessboard. Zelenka was in the process of trapping Carson's queen when Rodney walked over and whispered in John's ear, suggesting a flight in the puddle jumper. John's body still felt alien to him -- the way his hips creaked and hands sometimes shook -- but the puddle jumper brought him back to himself in a way nothing else had. The effortless way the controls responded made him wonder if a ship could miss a pilot.

John flew low to skim the trees, high above the clouds until the view screen filled with stars, and, with a smirk to a white-knuckled Rodney, dove the jumper into the planet's ocean before exploding out again in a fountain of droplets. As he spun out, high above the ocean, he couldn't resist an excited whoop at finally being alive again.

"I thought you missed this," Rodney commented just as John was beginning to notice his companion's unusual silence. "Even when you were…well, you seemed to remember that you liked flying."

For just a second John felt himself standing beside grey waters with the wind blowing in his hair and past arms outstretched like wings. Only the solid, familiar, finally there-again presence of Rodney at his side held him to the ground. Unlike most fragments from the past six years, this image filled him with a sense of peace that still made him shiver.

"Sheppard?" Rodney interrupted his thoughts and John looked over to where Rodney was examining the HUD. Rodney had rarely met his eyes these past few weeks. "Do you remember when I thought something was going to happen and you made me go home anyway?"

John sighed. He'd been waiting for, dreading this conversation, and was surprised it hadn't come sooner. "First Elizabeth, now you. Look, if anyone gets to take the blame for what happened, it's me. I'm the one who lost the fight, the one they used." John angled the puddle jumper to fly along the surface of the water, low enough to pull a wave behind them. "You guys had six years to get over what happened so why am I the only who's managed to move on?"

John caught Rodney's surprised look out the corner of his eyes. "You're really okay with it? Just like that?"

"I don't know if I'm okay with it," John said, thinking for a minute. "I guess, look, you found a way to buy me this time I shouldn't have. It doesn't seem worth wasting it by dwelling on things I can't change. I guess having been a eggplant gave me a new perspective." He smiled a bit at Rodney and then pulled the jumper into a sudden climb, laughing as the physicist scrambled to grab his armrests despite the jumper's inertial dampeners protecting them from truly feeling the climb.

He let Rodney fly on the way back and didn't even comment when the jumper didn't quite manage a straight line. When they landed, Rodney finally really met his eyes and John placed a hand on his shoulder as they exited the jumper. A final tension inside him finally relaxed and he knew they were going to be okay.

That night they sat around Teyla and Ronon's table for one final meal together. John still hadn't decided whether he would be leaving with the _Perseus_, and the unasked question hovered over the table. He figured he would flip a coin in the morning.

"Are these tava beans?" Rodney asked, wrinkling his nose at the bowl in front of him as he lifted his spoon to watch the brown lumps plop back down.

Teyla laughed. "Yes, Rodney, they are. You must have missed their flavor while you were on Earth."

"Hardly," Rodney scoffed. "They taste like underground bunkers and kidnapping and nuclear research without appropriate radiation shielding."

"The Genii have become good trading partners," Teyla told him. "Ladon has brought much change to his people."

"That's good to hear," Elizabeth said, reaching for the bread. "For all their faults, the Genii had a lot of potential."

"Right. They were especially good at those Wraith-infested torture chambers," Rodney snapped. John flinched at the memory, dragging his fork across his plate. Rodney looked at him and stammered, "I'm sorry…I didn't…"

"It's okay," John waved a hand dismissively. "Just don't kiss Beckett again or I'll really start having flashbacks."

"Ugh," Carson grumbled into his soup. "You had to remind me."

"That wasn't me!" Rodney declared. "I told you, Cadman had taken over my body."

"Sure, that's what you claim," Carson joked. "She had an awful lot of stubble."

"You should talk," Rodney stammered. "At least Sheppard never shot you!"

"He shot me," Ronon pointed out. "So did Dr. Weir."

"Hey now," Elizabeth protested. "Don't drag me into this."

"You know, you were a lot nicer when Cadman was in control," Zelenka remarked, thoughtfully looking at Rodney.

"Oh, don't you start now! You're the one who kept turning those mice into charcoal!" Rodney pointed a finger at Zelenka.

The meal went long into the night as memories were shared and the occasional dinner roll was thrown. When the sun set, Teyla lit candles to keep out the dark and the conversation continued -- laughing at the good memories, sobering at the hard ones. Dayna had long ago fallen asleep on her mother's lap and Johno was nodding off against Ronon's arm. John sat back in his chair, smiling as he watched his friends, letting their conversation wash over him. Being with these people felt more like home than anything he could remember. During his time in the Sanctuary, Teer and her brother had told him about peace like this, tried to teach him to reach it through mediation, but he had too many worries, too many responsibilities. Now he closed his eyes, letting the warmth envelope him and the peace fill his bones, listening as the voices slowly faded.

"Colonel Sheppard! Colonel Sheppard!" Somebody was shaking him. He thought about pushing the hand away, but it was too much effort. "Carson! What's wrong with him?"

"John, can you hear me? John?" There were more hands on him, insistent voices calling him. He tried to reach out, tried to tell them not to worry, that everything was better than okay, but he just couldn't.

"Is he glowing? Why is he glowing? CARSON!"

"John, don't do this, John, come back -- we didn't come all this way to lose you now." The voices were more distant now. He knew they should matter but the universe was stretching before him and he couldn't be bothered by what was immediately around him.

"Sheppard!" There was a slap across his face, hard enough to bring him back. "Don't you dare leave us after everything we've done for you! We just got you back." Rodney's voice was almost a sob and John cracked open an eye, reaching out to grab McKay's hand before he could lay another slap across his face.

"It's okay, Rodney. Trust me," he told the panicked scientist, watching as the hand on Rodney's arm began glowing around the edges.

He leaned back and smiled as everything faded into a bright light and he flew.


End file.
